[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.]

[0:06] To order.
[0:10] This is a workshop meeting, Tuesday, January 10, 2017. First item on the agenda is discussion regarding consent agenda items. Do we have a motion?
[0:25] I'm sorry, workshop. You and I just spent 20 minutes talking through all the other stuff. So, discussion regarding consent, agenda items for the second regular meeting of January 2, 2007.
[0:38] So any discussion or comments,
[0:44] please look over that then.
[0:47] We also have a discussion regarding statutory agenda items for the second regular meeting
[0:52] of January 10th.
[0:53] Any discussion?
[0:55] Mayor, I have, I'm not sure it's going to be answered in the workshop, but on item G statutory
[1:03] story items G about the new program to enhance Texas Avenue. I think it's a one
[1:13] where we do a hundred thousand dollars. I think it's a great program. I think
[1:18] it's got to be done as the citizens have told us. However, I think we need to add
[1:22] some items that I was hoping with our new mayor with entrepreneurial experience could
[1:27] come up with some ideas that would be faster moving than a hundred thousand
[1:30] dollars. Meaning that it's going to take more than $100,000 or some fabulous ideas to get
[1:35] that taken care of. And so I don't know how to be appropriate now but I'd like to add
[1:41] that we get a systems group together that's concerned about Texas Avenue and try to maybe
[1:46] focus the $100,000 or come up with some different ideas on how to enhance it.
[1:52] So are you saying you'd like to pull this from the statutory agenda?
[1:56] and so you could if I have to do that to add a committee to prove it for it with
[2:02] additional study but I think it's a great idea I don't give you wrong I know
[2:13] that but we can move to approve it and then point of committee is supplementary
[2:17] right right the subject is just to establish the
[2:23] We need a quarter of the education grant program, and we can go a lot of directions after we establish it.
[2:30] Right, so that's what I'd like to do, but add the committee so we can get working on that.
[2:36] So could we pull that, because somebody's second informant will pull it and talk about it?
[2:43] Okay, okay, thank you.
[2:44] So we'll pull it and talk about it in the regular session, see where it goes, okay?
[2:48] Any other discussion?
[2:50] That's for you, items?
[2:51] Okay,
[2:57] next item is a presentation by staff regarding local area traffic management programs.
[3:03] Keen.
[3:04] Mayor and Council, we have Paul Casper's going to introduce, I believe Gary Schatz, our traffic
[3:11] consultant on this issue.
[3:15] Good afternoon, Mayor and Council.
[3:17] We're here to talk today about our local area traffic management program, maybe new to many
[3:22] of you.
[3:23] We've really, it's fairly new in itself and the program was just established last year.
[3:28] And the intent of this presentation day is really to update you on progress of where we
[3:32] are with it, not to rehash or go back through all the fine details of the program.
[3:37] But we will kind of touch on the high points of that for you all, and then kind of show
[3:43] where we are to date with this, to turn the presentation over in a couple of slides to
[3:48] Gary to run through the rest of it and he's been very instrumental in putting this program
[3:54] together.
[3:54] I'd give a little history prior to having this program when someone asked, you know,
[3:59] what about traffic calming, doing speed humps and bumps and things of that nature?
[4:03] Well, our answer had been, we really don't do those, we don't have a unified program for
[4:08] that.
[4:08] I think to date we have really three installations of a couple of speed humps and one speed
[4:16] table.
[4:16] to a Monbaric and one by the high school.
[4:20] So that's the extent of what we've done
[4:23] and we've got to open up a whole new realm
[4:26] of opportunities and possibilities with this program,
[4:29] not just thinking along those two lines,
[4:31] but also a lot of other tools in our toolbox
[4:35] that we can use such as roundabouts
[4:37] and other things that Gary will talk about.
[4:39] So I think neighborhood traffic calming,
[4:41] but we're calling the official program LATM.
[4:47] Well,
[5:10] presentation agenda today,
[5:11] Today we're going to talk about the parameters of the program, give you the results of our
[5:14] first year pilot program which started in 2016, in with some recommendations and hopefully
[5:19] a little discussion direction from you making sure we're proceeding in the right direction.
[5:26] Talking about the objectives that we have for the program, really the first one I think
[5:32] summarizes a lot of what we're talking about is safety and quality of life for folks who
[5:36] are living along local neighborhood and residential collector streets.
[5:40] I'm talking about every street in town, we're talking about those in that neighborhood area
[5:45] and lower speeds, type of things, lower volumes, where folks are likely to be biking,
[5:52] riding bikes, walking, and we want to have safe modes of transportation for them in those areas.
[5:59] To go along with that overall program, really ought to look at making sure that we don't encourage
[6:03] cut-through traffic, so it means a lot of times making sure that our arterial streets
[6:07] or handling traffic and moving them efficiently so we don't have folks wanting to divert through
[6:13] neighborhoods as well so that's a side benefit to the overall program and creating opportunities
[6:18] for enhancements and focal points as we do these improvements to the neighborhood perhaps around
[6:24] about some things like that might be opportunities to do some aesthetic enhancements.
[6:30] So the policy was
[6:31] set up. It was under the authority of myself and we developed it with Gary's guidance. Gary came
[6:38] to us with experience from both City of Austin and City of Houston having done programs
[6:43] like this previously there. We kind of got the benefit of learning the mistakes all at
[6:47] once with Gary, so a lot of the things he may have gone through in both of those cities
[6:51] he brought with solutions starting out with so I think we have a good program from the
[6:56] get go. Certainly room for improvement and we're always open to those ideas as we move forward.
[7:01] We also partnered with the fire department and police department very early in developing
[7:05] this process, making sure that they understood their role would have an opportunity for some
[7:10] veto power and certain points through the process. We also reached out to the community
[7:15] neighborhood associations, got comments back and reviewed the program as well. And then
[7:20] last year in January, we got the authorization from council to move forward with the program
[7:26] and we launched our first call for projects, if you will, from four folks in the community
[7:32] to give us ideas back in March last year.
[7:38] Funding sources for the ultimate construction of the improvements was kind of identified,
[7:45] you know, typical funding sources for street improvements.
[7:48] So transportation fund, general fund, could be bond funds.
[7:52] And really these were the two big primary issues, speeding, being the number one safety issue
[8:02] that we were looking for and cut through traffic quality of life issues I mentioned before was
[8:07] also one of the areas that we wanted the program to at least talk about but initially right
[8:14] away I think we aren't staffed up to be able to handle those issues. So I think for most
[8:19] part our call for projects for the most part has been regarding speed mitigation so far
[8:24] state. And that's been our initial focus for that. We kind of defined a lot of timelines
[8:31] and milestones and work through that program.
[8:36] I think this is the term that I'm going to turn over to Gary here on this next slide
[8:39] is least restrictive that best mitigates.
[8:41] I've heard him say that more than one time
[8:44] and making sure that we document the problem well and understand
[8:47] we don't want to do something that's going to create a bigger issue in the neighborhood.
[8:51] And then we define some criteria to make sure that there was a
[8:55] a vetable process of how does someone have equal standing going through the process.
[9:01] is anyone can apply for it and go through the same steps with us.
[9:06] The with that I'm going to turn this over to Gary and then I'll come back up at the
[9:09] last and Dennis.
[9:12] All.
[9:13] Thank you.
[9:14] Your Honor Council members, good morning and good afternoon and thank you for your time.
[9:18] So when we talk about speeding mitigation, speeding is a public safety issue and we unfortunately
[9:23] have very good data that says that a pedestrian struck by motor vehicle traveling at a certain
[9:29] speed has a certain probability of being killed and that's what this draft represents. Unfortunately,
[9:34] those numbers are higher for children and the elderly. Which button is it for? Okay. We do because it
[9:43] is a safety issue, we want to try to create an expedited process to address those. And because also,
[9:50] it is a safety issue, it's something that we cannot delegate our responsibility, either as professional
[9:54] engineers are stewards of the safety of the public to a community vote so petitioning is a part
[10:01] of the process but it is not a sole determining factor. First thing we talked about is eligibility
[10:08] and that starts with the traffic study. What are the speed statistics? Do we have reasonable
[10:13] conformance with the speed limit or do we not? Or are there five or more speed related
[10:19] crashes that have occurred in a 24 month period? The good news and going through this pilot program,
[10:25] And we had maybe on all the streets literally a handful of crashes.
[10:30] They were, I think, all but one property damage only crashes, no street qualified for
[10:37] the program under the crash criteria.
[10:40] People say the crashes are happening and we see it with the mailboxes and the skid marks
[10:45] and things like that.
[10:46] But unless it's reported to Brian Police Department and a report is generated for the program
[10:52] this did not happen, because we can objectively look and see what's going on with that.
[10:57] We do want to minimize impact public services, and the fire department does have veto roles.
[11:03] We also don't want to conflict with other projects, or, and they just doesn't go along
[11:08] multi-lane roadways.
[11:09] Somebody requested Bill of Maria in front of Blaine College.
[11:13] I don't think we want to traffic home, Bill of Maria, not the right thing.
[11:17] When we look at ranking for funding, we looked at 15 weighted criteria, the higher score equals the higher priority, and just because you're eligible does not mean you're funded that becomes a process of looking at the available city budget and resources and what can we find.
[11:34] That's why we have a ranking for funding process. All things considered equal who goes first, and we want to try to make that as objective and equitable as possible.
[11:44] And then because our traffic studies have a finite shelf life and evidence of support
[11:50] petitions and neighborhoods have a finite shelf life, currently in the program, if you're
[11:54] unfunded after two years, your request does expire and you need to go back to the program.
[12:01] So here are our statistics.
[12:03] We had a total of 30 accepted requests of the program.
[12:06] We had more requests come in, we had, I think,
[12:15] wherever got my number.
[12:18] We had 16 duplicate requests, we had several people submit for the same street and the program
[12:24] only recognizes one request or record for a street second and we had some individual
[12:30] couple of requests that just were not ineligible or were not eligible for the program.
[12:36] When we went through the entire process of these 30 of our 11 of them are eligible for funding and we'll see those later in ranked for funding order.
[12:47] We did have two that were eligible but they were incomplete and one of the requirements is the requester of record has to circulate and evidence of support petition return that to us.
[12:59] Two of the requesters despite our best efforts just did not return that document.
[13:03] So, they're incomplete and they do not take the funding.
[13:07] The other 17 were ineligible, nine of them because we couldn't document either an adverse
[13:15] level of speeding or a crash history.
[13:18] The fire department did have to veto one.
[13:21] There are a lot of people again, they ask for villa Maria or other streets that we just,
[13:24] you know, the street heart says we do not have to call those streets.
[13:28] Then three, we had active repending construction.
[13:31] I've got to question one, go in there and tear something up, you'll put something in
[13:35] and tear it out and put it back.
[13:37] For the fire department, what was the reason for the veto?
[13:41] It was considered an emergency service travel route.
[13:43] They used it a lot and they were concerned about traffic calling along their impact and
[13:47] their ability to travel timely.
[13:50] One thing that we do offer, though, is we had a caveat in the program if we went out there
[13:55] did the traffic study and the statistics were just incredibly low. Then we have the ability
[14:02] to change the speed limit on that street from the statutory from a facet 30 miles an hour
[14:08] down to 25 miles an hour. And we had four streets that did qualify for that. We want to go out
[14:15] there after council action to approve changes to speed limit and drop those speeds on that street
[14:21] down to 25. We limit on those streets to 25.
[14:26] So here's an example. I want to share three
[14:29] examples of what we were looking at in terms of speeding mitigation strategy. Again, the least
[14:34] restrictive that best mitigates. By doing that, it's easier to get consensus from a community
[14:42] because the more egregious the mitigation my experience is, the harder it is to get consensus.
[14:48] and we want to minimize the potential for shifting traffic to adjacent trees.
[14:53] The risk isn't zero but we do want to minimize it.
[14:56] So this is trophy drive. This is actually our very first request.
[15:00] The program. And they wanted us to take a look at broad more to the briar gate, as you see. Here are the speed statistics. Definitely a problem out there. And interestingly, Eastbound toward Highway 6 is the bigger problem, because everybody's using that to circumvent the signal there at 6th and we angel Brian. And a lot of folks just going too fast out there. Our proposal, two speed hunts along the street seconds.
[15:29] It's pretty simple, pretty straightforward.
[15:31] The location of the driveways really preclude any other strategies because we don't want to
[15:37] put things in front of people's driveways if we can avoid it.
[15:40] So two speed humps found that would fit appropriately.
[15:44] All of these were approved by BFB prior to us, even circulating condition.
[15:51] Excuse me.
[15:52] This is an example of what speed humps look like.
[15:56] I've been involved with this sometimes in the past and I remember if it's an ordinance
[16:00] or a policy that, if we put a speed hump in, the neighbors have to participate in the cost, is that a factor now?
[16:06] This program does not require cost participation.
[16:08] Okay, good.
[16:09] This program does recognize opportunities for a partnership.
[16:14] Let's say we have a request that is eligible but is not funded.
[16:18] If they want to come up with matching funds or if they want to privately fund it, we will entertain that.
[16:27] Here's another street.
[16:28] This is Esther over by BLAN, running from Carter Creek to East 29, and the challenge on this one, you know, very, very busy street, 4200 vehicles a day, BFD, our BPD is put out their speed monitoring trailer, a number of times over the years on this street, and they're still doing what they do.
[17:00] So when we first took a look at this, we thought the least restrictive that would best mitigate would be four speed hunts.
[17:07] The scattered was about equal distance along the 2000 feet of street, but when we shared that with the fire department, they said no, we use that street frequently.
[17:17] So, we're okay if you do traffic calming, but you cannot do any vertical deflection devices.
[17:23] So, no speed humps, no speed tables, no speed fish.
[17:26] All of a sudden, we have a lot of tools taken out of our toolbox.
[17:29] And then the next most appropriate alternative in talking it over with our engineering staff
[17:36] in the fire department is actually three many roundabouts, one located at each intersection.
[17:43] So as you drive through the street, you are going to have to do horizontal deflection and
[17:47] we'll see that having the effect of helping the slow traffic down.
[17:51] Here is some slides that show an example of what roundabouts and many roundabouts look
[17:56] back in neighborhoods.
[17:58] We don't, I apologize, we don't have anything specific for what Esther might look like,
[18:02] but that is the genesis of where we would be pulling ideas from.
[18:10] Excuse me, Gary, would these be smaller diameter than you have on Nash and Brodmore?
[18:15] Yes, they would.
[18:16] They would be designed to fit within the existing intersection.
[18:19] We do not have a desire to move curbs.
[18:22] We do not have a desire to take right away with this program.
[18:24] We want to try to do everything within the footprint of the street, or at least within the
[18:29] city's right away.
[18:30] So the fire trucks would still work, do you think, vaccine dimensions?
[18:35] Yes, or what what actually happens in a photo in the upper right those all of those islands are mountable
[18:42] So larger vehicles have to drive over everything
[18:45] So there'd be no there'd be no beautiful. Okay, you know, you wouldn't be you know putting a tree there or anything because you
[18:52] It would last apartment got a drive over there
[18:54] I
[18:55] Think the fire department take it out with the first pass
[18:57] So long as they can get over it, right, but you know, maybe there's an opportunity for an aesthetic treatment with with brick inlay
[19:05] or something like that. I don't know, but one of the things that we do is we work with the
[19:10] requesters once we identified which request are funded and help them guide us through the
[19:16] design process and some ideas for aesthetic treatment. And that also may be if landscaping is an
[19:23] opportunity, that's where we would look for partnering to say, okay, if we landscape it will
[19:28] you maintain it. That's where Chief McGregor said just make sure they're red, right? As long as the
[19:35] All right, and Gary, they used, they, I've been in some streets in Austin where that small roundabout thing is used
[19:42] Did you design those and you know depends on where you were there were some not my favorite examples in Austin, okay
[19:49] Well, anyway, they seem to work well, so some did work better than others. I will agree
[19:56] Here's another example. This is broadmore drive from trophy down to
[20:01] a braver drive, and obviously a very, very busy street because it is a designated minor
[20:10] collector.
[20:14] So, I mean, it's carrying the traffic, the challenge is that's really fast with them
[20:19] we want in that neighborhood.
[20:21] And the other challenge is because the, I'm sorry, designated major collector because it
[20:25] is, and this is working with fire, no vertical deflection devices.
[20:29] So, again, no speed homes, no speed tables, no speed cushions.
[20:31] the proposed solution for Broadmore is a many round about it, Janice Trail, and then two what we
[20:39] call chokers located about a 400 feet or so down. Basically imagine a park car on this side of
[20:47] the street, a park car on this side of the street, and somebody puts a bunch of traffic cones in between
[20:52] and the middle of the street. That really creates the impression I need to slow down to go through
[20:58] there. Many of some examples of what those might look like. These are landscape. So a
[21:03] choker is this ball bounce, which is an extension of the curve from from the edge inward and
[21:09] the splitter island, which is an island in the center. They can be directly across from
[21:13] each other. Or as you see in these examples, they're they're offsets that they're actually
[21:18] also create kind of a chicane effect. And so that's what you're already having at trophy
[21:24] in Broadmoor? Is it the same kind of setup? Broadmoor, trophy, or ball-outs? Yes, sir, so that's what you recommend. So, you recommend that for the rest of Broadmoor.
[21:34] Yeah, not everywhere, but yes, that is the concept. If we can create the opportunity for landscaping as opposed to simply brick favors, we would like to explore that.
[21:43] Isn't that a little different, though, because it's got a stop sign there, and these would work without a stop sign? Yes, sir, they would work without a stop sign.
[21:50] There's another example of what litter islands can look like.
[21:54] Again, landscape, you can add paper treatments around them.
[21:58] There's a variety of things you can do to enhance their appeal
[22:01] for the community.
[22:04] So here is a busy slide, and I will apologize for an end for that.
[22:08] But this is our ranking for funding of the 11 requests.
[22:14] So Rosemary Drive from Loop State to Rosemary Drive South.
[22:18] you know, that rosemary kind of loop over there just off 29 for up for it goes to two lanes.
[22:25] Our highest scoring request, a lot incredibly high speeds, incredibly high volumes, very
[22:32] good evidence to support best solution there were two speed humps. Cost estimate for that
[22:37] is about 12 grand. And then as you go down the list, each one of those has a cost we show
[22:43] So the proposed mitigation device, our cost estimate, and then the far right column is
[22:48] a cumulative estimate, so that if we say we only have $300,000, we know how far to go
[22:56] down the list and draw the line.
[22:59] So that's a very effective budget management tool, and again, who goes first and how come
[23:04] we have that objective information for the ranking for funding the fact?
[23:09] Sorry, if you already covered this, but on five of the six, the five of the top six that
[23:13] you have, I've had people just personally talk to me about the issue and very concerned
[23:17] about it, but then they also say, but please don't put speed bumps.
[23:23] So how are you getting neighborhood feedback on your own, obviously we can get that feedback
[23:31] on our own.
[23:32] How are you getting that feedback to know kind of where people stand?
[23:35] I know you started this by saying it's hard for it to get everyone in the neighborhood to agree I respect that but you know that's a good question. I'm going to see if I can go to a particular slide that is towards the end of the program.
[23:49] We I do have toward the end of the program. I have a slide that shows our evidence of support petition on one side is a map that shows these various proposed devices and where they go on the other side is.
[24:02] You know, name, address, phone number, yes, I'm for it.
[24:05] No, I'm against it.
[24:06] I'll go with the majority.
[24:08] And the requester of record is,
[24:09] and we define the petition area on that map as well.
[24:13] The requester of record is required to contact
[24:17] every property in the shaded area,
[24:19] and either get a signature and a position
[24:23] or provide us with an explanation
[24:25] of why they could not get a signature.
[24:27] I went by three times, three different days.
[24:30] Nobody was home.
[24:30] I went in some of my slammed the door in my face.
[24:33] They had a chain link fence with a bunch of dogs running.
[24:35] They're that kind of thing.
[24:37] So we're looking for good faith effort from the requester
[24:40] that they have tried to contact everyone along the street segment
[24:44] so they're aware of what's going on.
[24:46] It's not uncommon in your honor to see people say,
[24:49] I'm for it, but not front of my house.
[24:53] And our response to that is because these are geometric
[24:57] free features installed at with engineering judgment, you know, from from
[25:03] engineering perspective, this is our application over engineering judgments, our
[25:09] abilities under our licensure, and unless somebody can bring us a really good
[25:14] objective reason why it needs to be moved or it needs to be changed, it stays
[25:19] where it is. A lot of people say, well if you'll just move it in front of their house,
[25:24] I'm okay with it and they say no I don't want in front of my house. Move it back over there. This keeps that from happening
[25:30] And then the ranking for funding allows us to say we don't care if you we understand you may not like it
[25:36] But public safety is paramount and that is why the evidence for petition while it is one
[25:43] ranking for funding factor. It is not a sole deterrent factor
[25:48] We're going to have a street with one yes and a thousand no's but the speeding and crashes
[25:52] could be so horrendous that we do something anyway.
[25:57] I'd like comment mayor that people in this community have seen speed bumps not on city
[26:06] streets necessarily but in parking lots and there is a big difference between a speed bump
[26:13] and a speed hump.
[26:15] I've been in other communities that utilize the speed humps
[26:19] and you can drive across them possibly 20 miles an hour
[26:23] and just not even feel them.
[26:26] Whereas you drive across the speed bump at 20 miles an hour,
[26:29] you might break something.
[26:32] So some of this feedback you have received
[26:35] may not be valid if they experience the difference
[26:40] between a speed bump and a speed home.
[26:43] Sure. My point was just, are you already incorporating that in so that when we're evaluating this,
[26:48] we can see what that neighborhood feedback is as a part of the process.
[26:52] It sounds like you're saying the petition process should cover that.
[26:56] Obviously, we can look in and ask more neighbors how they feel about each of these spots,
[26:59] but you're covering that.
[27:02] Yes, sir.
[27:02] Another challenge we have in this community in fairness to those people who say,
[27:06] I don't want speed humps. Is there a way of the speed humps that are down and better far?
[27:11] In college station very very good example of what not to do.
[27:16] They're just not well.
[27:18] There's two cities, one community, so I appreciate that example. I'm sure there are examples in every city.
[27:22] What about the, excuse me, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[27:25] What about the ones on Berk Lane that we already have?
[27:28] They are. Those are here as part of this and we'll see this later in the program.
[27:33] They can be constructed to a better standard, and part of this effort would be to reconstruct them to a current state.
[27:40] But they aren't as severe as the Humps and the Barnlots.
[27:43] They're closer to what you'd like to have.
[27:45] There are closer to that.
[27:46] Did you get a little feel for it?
[27:48] So not quite there, but they're closer.
[27:50] So I think in fairness to the community, we should be equitable in shape and style everywhere, because I need to be able to anticipate,
[27:58] okay, I can drive across all of them this way versus some I have to stop at.
[28:02] So I can speed over.
[28:06] Here is a list of all of our ineligible requests and they are alphabetical by requested street.
[28:13] Many of them were ineligible, again, because the speed criteria wasn't met or there was construction pending.
[28:21] There were, again, those two niches laying from Autry to State Highway 21. We just didn't get a petition back.
[28:28] Wayside drive from Avondale to Esther. We just didn't get a petition back.
[28:33] So, if there were someone along that street who sees this or sees media coverage in the
[28:40] next few days, a couple of weeks, whatever, and they say, I want to step up and take
[28:46] over as a requester and get this done, we couldn't be more thrilled if that would have.
[28:53] So, if you know somebody, please.
[28:59] So, here's our recommendations.
[29:00] We want to continue to the LATM program.
[29:03] We find that one request round per year is sufficient.
[29:06] We can hear the program up to do two a year, but it does train our existing resources, and we're going to do that.
[29:14] Speaking with the city engineer who's spoken with our public works director, we are recommending funding all 11 eligible requests.
[29:23] Total for that is about $470,000 from the transportation fund. We begin with conduct a kickoff meeting with all of those
[29:31] requesters and begin the preliminary design. Then we're looking to those could be constructed
[29:39] depending on getting an on-call contractor into complexity perhaps by the end of this year.
[29:45] We think we could move relatively quickly. Speedhumps can happen very quickly. The slower
[29:51] ones would be the many about this. And then we have this time six requests that came in
[29:58] and after the pilot was over.
[30:00] And we would start them in a new restaurant. We begin processing them as well. We also want
[30:06] it, we mentioned speed humps along Barric Lane. We would reconstruct both of those, and
[30:11] we would reconstruct the speedtail of that raised crosswalk along Oak Ridge Drive, which
[30:16] behind the high stage. So all of those would represent current state of the practice.
[30:23] With that,
[30:26] let me do go, your honor, because you did ask about it.
[30:36] This is what our evidence is for petition and speeding mitigation plans look like.
[30:42] So on the front we provide all of the speed information, there's a variety of tech of
[30:48] disclaimers, techs, et cetera, so that as people look at this, as they go from door to door
[30:54] or the evidence, the petition is on one side,
[30:58] you have to flip it over to see the plan
[31:00] and vice versa.
[31:01] We will not take one side of documents
[31:04] as we want to, as best we can,
[31:06] ensure that people have looked at the plan
[31:09] and are making an informed decision
[31:11] when they sign on the other side.
[31:16] That's what these look like.
[31:17] And that's what every request,
[31:19] I wanna give a shout out.
[31:20] I don't know, we have some more questions
[31:23] of record here in the audience.
[31:24] I want to give a shout out to them all together.
[31:28] They petitioned close to 500 homes, 500 properties in this.
[31:33] One request had, I think, maybe 15 properties.
[31:37] Another request had over 100.
[31:40] And they were out in June, July and August getting this done.
[31:45] And there was one lady who heard of a request on another street
[31:48] that was kind of foundering just really couldn't get help.
[31:51] She lived several bucks away.
[31:53] She said, I'll come and help, and she did.
[31:55] So there is a tremendous interest from my perspective
[31:59] that the community does care about safety,
[32:01] and they're willing to help each other to get it done.
[32:03] So please folks are awesome.
[32:05] I just want to give them a shout out for that, please.
[32:10] Pro-10, Donna.
[32:12] Yes, I got to hear a version of this program a few weeks back
[32:16] at the MPO meeting.
[32:18] And I want to thank you for the presentation.
[32:21] And I think it's one of the different ideas
[32:26] as you'll have regarding feeding and traffic management.
[32:30] I've been thinking about that a lot.
[32:32] It's a route around towns where we need some
[32:34] of these devices installed.
[32:37] Thank you again, great presentation.
[32:39] Thank you, sir.
[32:40] Thank you.
[32:41] In the comments?
[32:42] Thank you very much.
[32:42] I appreciate the list.
[32:44] I'm pointed to give a shout out to one more person.
[32:46] We sit in the back row and she's going to hate you.
[32:48] But Linda Lyndon makes her a crazy hand back there in the back.
[32:52] She was really helpful for us and the public
[33:09] So the funding is there, we don't need to do anything else.
[33:12] It is going to be shown in the forecast for the transportation fee.
[33:17] Next budget cycle, see if there we've already looked at that created allocation for it.
[33:23] Good.
[33:25] So yeah, there will be, at some point depending on whether we do those, you know, in-house
[33:30] change orders, various things, bits and pieces of this come, or you may see one contract
[33:35] saying this is going to do all of these for your approval that may come long, or, yes,
[33:44] defend those lines.
[33:48] But right now you've already got it set aside for these projects, the dollars, wherever
[33:53] they come from.
[33:54] That's it. Okay. Thanks.
[33:57] Okay. Next item on the agenda. Yes. Oh, sorry, Venice.
[34:04] Maybe I missed it while I was writing. So
[34:08] then what was the process of how did how did we go about choosing the neighborhood streets?
[34:15] The LHM is a request driven program. Anyone who lives or works along a street segment may submit
[34:21] I request okay whether you grant our own we're indifferent to that but the requirement is you do
[34:30] live or work along that street that your your residence your residence may be you know front
[34:35] facing you're on the street it could be side abutting so it's a street drawn on the corner on the
[34:41] side street you can be back abutting your house backs up the street you touch that street you can
[34:46] here in eligible requesters. Okay, so it comes from the neighbors, people who live on the street with
[34:53] a question. Yes, when we started the program.
[35:06] Okay, thank
[35:21] you, that's what I need.
[35:25] Thank you,
[35:25] Councilman Madison, any other questions? Okay, thank you. Next item on the agenda,
[35:32] presentation by staff regarding policies and procedures for housing revitalization
[35:38] and fill program. Mayor and staff Alcy Bond with our community development department will present
[35:43] this item.
[35:49] Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. It's really good to see you this afternoon.
[35:53] Today we want to thank you for your support of the housing and fill revitalization program funded
[36:00] by Council last year and this year's budget. We also want to provide information on the program for
[36:07] new council members provide a history of the expanded housing program and give everyone
[36:12] an update regarding the housing and bill policies and procedures.
[36:17] We did provide you a handout that is the full draft policies and procedures which should
[36:23] be by your chair, but today we're just going to present a summary of those policies and procedures.
[36:30] So, first, I want to give a quick view
[36:40] of the outcome of the General Home Investment
[36:43] and to the West 18th Street and Sims Project, which was a project done by Community Development
[36:49] a couple of years ago utilizing grant funds for the acquisition of the property and then
[36:56] And we were utilizing general fund as a loan for us to bid out the project, which we
[37:05] did bid out the project.
[37:07] R&L builders was the low competitive builder and some of the previous council members remember
[37:13] this project that we brought forward to you all.
[37:18] Four of the homes were built, there were five bids that were presented to us and the low
[37:24] competitive bid was $397,000. Of the forehomes, three of the homeowners received down payment
[37:34] assistance through our federal program and then one was above the income rate.
[37:43] I think the project was a huge success and it really does make a big difference. If you
[37:48] go into that area in that neighborhood, there's a lot of neighborhood pride. As I mentioned last
[37:55] last year when I presented to Council, there was a lot of feedback to us about what was
[37:59] going on in the neighborhood and some, it does spur development and we've seen that as
[38:06] a catalyst for future projects in the area.
[38:11] Currently in Bryan, there are 75 unsold new homes, ranging in price from $191,639,000 with
[38:27] which way is way above and beyond the affordable housing market, target market that we're looking at.
[38:38] Now how many homes you said were available in homes?
[38:41] 75.
[38:42] 75.
[38:43] So this is the acquisition cause through community development, block grant and the general fund investment.
[38:50] The house is sold anywhere from 115,000 up to 120.
[38:54] There were sales proceeds that went back into our program.
[38:57] And then we approach council about the housing and fill revitalization program, talking
[39:04] about the need for affordable housing, primarily in our older neighborhoods for Lauren-Muttered
[39:10] income individual.
[39:14] Over the course of the last several years, community development along with the housing and
[39:20] fill committee has met with a lot of developers in our area, contractors looking at why they're
[39:26] not building in our older neighborhoods and what were some of the issues.
[39:31] Some of the issues that they presented to us was unclear titles, actually a viable
[39:37] market for their product, they can get people qualified to buy their homes, there might
[39:42] be boundary disputes.
[39:43] Well, this is what we do on a daily basis with the clients that we work with.
[39:48] So we're looking to be out in front, taking care of those issues in order for us to bid out
[39:54] the project to make this program work. This is our income limits for our federal program,
[40:01] which is at 80% at or below the median income for our area. So you can see for a family
[40:07] of four, that's around 47,100. Now that's our program, which was the program that the four
[40:16] houses were built. Let me show you a little difference here. The program that we're
[40:23] proposing today goes up to 125%, so as you can see for a family of four, that would go up to 73,625,000.
[40:35] This is going to help tremendously if we move forward with this program.
[40:41] For us, it's been very difficult because you may get a family that's at 81%.
[40:47] As a, we can't provide them down payment assistance or work with them because they're over our income limit.
[40:55] So, this gives us a little more flexibility working within the new housing development expanded program.
[41:03] Anywhere from 80% of the median income to 125%.
[41:09] And I'm going to provide you a little more information specifically about the program in just a moment.
[41:15] But as far as going up over the 125%, that would only be done upon the city manager's approval at
[41:30] a little ahead of us.
[41:34] Okay, so we are proposing that our initial program under this policy would be West 28th Street.
[41:45] We presented this information last year when we did a presentation.
[41:51] that's a triangle area there that the city owns that property due to a extension on West 28th of the street and we're proposing and are currently working on a bid package for three houses in that particular area where, you know, Wallace is on the bottom there and Graham is on the top.
[42:12] So we want to just start out and the program is designed to build no more than three to
[42:19] five houses at a time.
[42:21] We don't want to saturate the market number one and not be able to qualify individuals
[42:27] for our target market.
[42:30] It's a very successful program with what we have been doing.
[42:34] We think it will be even more successful with the increased income limit but it is hard
[42:40] to qualify our client.
[42:41] It does take us a long time, there's a lot of hand holding, we have to make sure that
[42:47] the people that are going to purchase the homes are able to get a mortgage are able
[42:52] to repay that mortgage and so we follow very stringent income, qualifying guidelines
[42:59] that were set up in our regular programs which is 33% on the front end ratio and 43% on the
[43:07] that meaning that the principal interest title and insurance along with any consumer debt
[43:15] it would be no more than 43% of their monthly gross income.
[43:21] So we've been doing this for a long time.
[43:25] We think that the success of the program is built upon the success that we've already had
[43:31] But in the future, it will only continue to grow if we have that opportunity to expand the
[43:39] income.
[43:41] So now I want to talk a little bit about the program and the policy and procedures.
[43:47] As I mentioned, you do have a handout that has the full policy and procedure that looks pretty
[43:52] detailed.
[43:53] We wanted to cover all of our bases and make sure that we're doing the right thing by having
[43:59] a public purpose, number one, which is to promote revitalization and create economic development
[44:05] opportunities in our older neighborhoods, primarily low- and moderate income neighborhoods
[44:11] through the development of infield housing, affordable housing for owner occupancy.
[44:19] So the main goals of the program, obviously, we want to continue creating opportunities
[44:24] communities for people in brine to be home owners, and that's very important to us.
[44:30] We work with residents who live in brine who are already living in the older neighborhoods
[44:36] who might want to have that opportunity to purchase a home that's not able to do that
[44:42] right now.
[44:43] So we also want to create opportunities for economic development, new construction, and then
[44:50] and other ways to leverage resources in that area.
[44:54] As I mentioned earlier, we've seen when we do smaller projects
[44:58] through community development.
[45:00] That it does create neighborhood pride and brings people to that point of wanting to work more in their neighborhood as well as living there. And so, and also to create an opportunity to bring money back into the program is the proceeds of the sales.
[45:20] So annually, community development does housing needs assessments anyway. So we're going to look at this on an annual basis and look at those older neighborhoods and
[45:32] say, you know, what is it do we need? Where's the property available? And as budget allows,
[45:38] we'll move forward with a bid packet. But part of that, if there's acquisition involved,
[45:44] we want to hold a public hearing to talk about the use of the real property. That way that gives
[45:49] people in the neighborhood an idea about what's going to come and to provide any public comment
[45:56] that back and also kind of simulate some interest.
[45:59] We do that in the past, we have through our public meetings
[46:02] with community development advisory committee.
[46:05] We have generated a lot of interest in what we're doing
[46:10] in some of our neighborhoods.
[46:12] And so we think that's important to engage the public.
[46:15] So we could use available city property,
[46:19] which we want to do on this first project.
[46:21] There's a lot of times where there will be infrastructure needs in certain areas.
[46:29] Public works is very good about assisting us with sidewalks or carbon gutter, that sort
[46:35] of thing.
[46:36] And when the bid packages bid out, it will be subject to any city or state or federal requirements
[46:47] as applicable, as a competitive bid project.
[46:53] So for the project, the housing construction, the overall management of the project will
[46:58] be done by community development staff currently, Eric Gordon, and youth services staff of the
[47:03] B. These are
[47:11] some of the marketing efforts that we did with the West 18th Street and SEMS
[47:19] project and we think that there are available ways to market.
[47:25] So first we're going to assess the needs in the area, then we're going to look at the
[47:29] bid packet.
[47:30] All along we're going to start that marketing way ahead because as I mentioned earlier,
[47:37] a lot of times it takes our targeted population a while to get their mortgage and so we want
[47:43] to start even before we send out the big package, public public sizing, what we're doing,
[47:51] letting the neighborhood know what we're doing, and then when the actual houses get on
[47:56] the ground, we're going to have open houses that sort of thing, anything else that we could
[48:01] do to market that property, but I will tell you that right now, as I mentioned in a prior
[48:09] presentation. We have we have people that are qualified now that could move into
[48:16] homes if we have a home. That's a move in target. You know, things change when
[48:21] people go and get their their mortgage when when they go and apply for a
[48:27] mortgage. So that that we're always working with people to make sure that
[48:31] they're not doing things that would cause an issue there but we're
[48:35] constantly marketing what we have going on and trying to get people that are living in
[48:41] our neighborhood in Dubien, Oklahoma.
[48:47] So as I mentioned earlier, we're going to try
[48:50] to pre-qualify potential buyers. This is in the policies and procedures. If they are
[48:56] above the 80% or below the media income, which is our normal income range, if they're up between
[49:05] between 80% and 125% upon the city manager's approval, and when it's presented to you, there
[49:14] are some options if they did not qualify for home mortgage.
[49:21] So one of the options within the policy is a deferred equity loan, which basically
[49:27] just means a deferred equity loan upon the approval of city council would be given to
[49:35] a family for that gap. Let's say the house was 160, you only qualified for 150. That's
[49:44] an option only or the general fund could provide down payment assistance. We can't assist
[49:50] those over 80%, but upon the approval of and the direction of the city manager and your
[49:56] approval, that is an option. As we stated here, all sales contracts are subject to approval
[50:04] of City Council and must be signed by the committee.
[50:12] So what happens if we build the houses and for some unforeseen reason, one of them
[50:18] doesn't sell?
[50:20] Or we're going to go up to 180 days and after that particular time it is an option to
[50:28] offer the sale to other potential purchasers which could include investors.
[50:33] And what we would like to do is put a land-use restriction on the agreement, so if we sail,
[50:42] they can't sail the home unless they're selling to low and moderate income individuals.
[50:47] It's only an option, as I said earlier, we want to cover all of our bases.
[50:51] We don't want houses in our community, sitting, not sold, that's why we're starting small.
[50:58] We don't think this is going to happen, but we definitely want to have a plan in place in case something does happen.
[51:11] I think that hopefully I've given you a good summary of our housing infill policy and procedures.
[51:18] There's a lot more detail in the handout that I provided to you and upon your direction.
[51:24] We would like to come back in a future council meeting and present it in action.
[51:30] Do I have any questions?
[51:33] Thank you mayor we first offered the houses on 18th Street seemed like it took a little
[51:42] while and once they started selling they sort of like dominoes they sold but was the
[51:50] only qualification issue that we had not like qualifying for a loan but the city had was
[51:57] Was the issue, the income amount, because what was at the main issue is the why people
[52:04] didn't qualify?
[52:06] I think the main issue for our federal program is the fact that we're at the 80 percent
[52:13] or below, which is, it limits us somewhat, and some people it takes them a while to get
[52:24] their bank approval, because their income is lower, and because they maybe have no credit,
[52:33] or maybe they have a credit issue, there's a lot of different reasons for that.
[52:39] I think this program will help us a lot because it will expand it a little bit.
[52:44] But to me, when people come into our office, and they're at 85 to 90, and we can't help
[52:52] them. So we did turn away a lot of people that we could not help. Now one of those houses
[52:58] did sell and the person the family was at 82%, but I will say it does take us a while
[53:06] to sell. It does. I would be not honest if I didn't take that.
[53:12] But we were kind of casting a bigger net. Yes, yes, we are.
[53:19] How long would you say it takes to I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, thank you mayor
[53:25] I'm just trying to summarize what you just told us and so the demand for these houses is not a problem
[53:31] You got plenty people and it's not the area where they're built. It's the people want to buy these houses
[53:36] Yes, so the problem is that they don't qualify in one way or another because of income or
[53:42] Credit or that kind of thing. That's right. Okay, so and we restricted
[53:48] to the 82% because it's federal money that's primarily
[53:51] building the houses.
[53:53] Our program that we built the 18th Street and Sim Street,
[53:57] yes, that was restricted to 80 and below because, yes,
[54:00] we did.
[54:01] Okay, so you're expanding that so that didn't,
[54:04] the federal money didn't have anything to do with that.
[54:06] The federal money doesn't have anything to do with it.
[54:08] Okay, so then, so if we get to the point where you can't
[54:13] get anybody qualified with the current restrictions,
[54:16] what's wrong with just opening it up for sale to anybody?
[54:20] And we can and that's a provision in the policy.
[54:23] Okay, so you could just open it up like a real estate agent and sell the house to anybody.
[54:27] So how would that, that wouldn't affect somebody that needs the house or the area, the community, or the subdivision would?
[54:35] Upon the policy is written to give us the flexibility to do that, but it's on the direction of the city manager and approval of council.
[54:45] So the sale of the house is really not an impence by anything because when you get the one roadblocking go another way, so you can populate that area, okay?
[54:54] And I will say also to support one of the areas that you just address, the city also runs the bank on Brazil's Valley program.
[55:04] And we work with a lot of our families who are banks to establish better credit.
[55:10] we've been doing that for several years now and we really have put an emphasis on that with our
[55:16] partnership with United Way to really look at the route at the issue why people are not getting
[55:23] qualified for homes and to help them establish their credit and to help them just establish good
[55:30] financial home management so it's kind of a whole ball of whack. So this is more than just a
[55:37] this is trying to get people's lives back on track financially in many ways.
[55:42] Thank you.
[55:43] That's Buffy.
[55:45] Thank you.
[55:47] I just had a question.
[55:48] How long from the time that the house has finished is the average of to sell these homes?
[55:55] How long has it taken?
[55:56] The market right now is 75 to 80 days.
[56:00] Probably to take us a little bit longer.
[56:05] three, four months could be longer.
[56:10] We do have people who are qualified now, but when the HUMs get built there may not be
[56:18] at that particular time, but we hope to offset that by pre-marketing.
[56:24] Right.
[56:24] We want to put it all out effort, but it is difficult, and we don't want the houses to sit
[56:30] there.
[56:30] So, so basically one thing we could do is pre-sell the house before we build it.
[56:35] Yes, sir.
[56:38] Councilor Madison.
[56:43] The deal is what I'll say now I'm going to dig in and I'll tell you fellas, they do
[56:46] a great job.
[56:48] A question is, what you're saying is if we're able to build these homes, we first go out
[56:56] with the 80 that meet the 80%, if we're not able to meet the 80%, then we increase it
[57:02] to the 125%?
[57:04] Well, currently the program is up to 125%.
[57:08] Most of our clients that come to talk with us
[57:15] about buying a home are around that 80%.
[57:19] And it's going to be the uppers 70 to 80%
[57:23] that are going to qualify.
[57:25] If you get much lower than that, they're probably
[57:27] not going to qualify for a mortgage.
[57:30] but this program goes up to 125% our community development program is 80% okay
[57:40] next question now if we if we do open it up to real estate or to the public
[57:46] don't we run the risk of it being rental property instead of being a home
[57:51] monos deal.
[57:57] Hopefully that will not happen. I think there is we have put in place all sorts
[58:03] of contingencies for that. But when you get to the point of that, if you have not sold
[58:10] the home and you've exhausted all efforts and you sell to an investor, there'll be a land
[58:15] use restriction agreement upon that property. They cannot sell that property without it being
[58:21] and a low and moderate income person.
[58:28] Councilman Marie, pardon me?
[58:29] Questions?
[58:35] Councilman Marie.
[58:37] Mike on, there you go.
[58:39] Quick question, for citizens who have a,
[58:42] don't we have some type of program
[58:43] if someone has a substandard home
[58:46] where we would offer low financing
[58:49] to build them a new home
[58:50] and they can use their property as equity for that home?
[58:54] Do we have a current program in place?
[58:56] Is that something we could kind of combine
[58:59] We already have that program just to give you a quick overview of what a community development offers through our federal program.
[59:09] We provide demolition and reconstruction at 0% interest, so there is a program already in place for that along with minor repair, which is a grant program for health and safety issues for people at that 80%
[59:28] or below.
[59:30] Okay.
[59:31] That's what I thought.
[59:32] I just wanted to double check.
[59:33] Thank you.
[59:38] Thank you very much for listening to me.
[59:41] Yeah, just one other question.
[59:42] What percentage of the ones that we've done historically are being demolished and rebuilt
[59:48] new versus on undeveloped property?
[59:52] We have not demolished any homes in our housing development program for community development.
[1:00:00] Development. The program that I was referring to are reconstruct. They're all demolition, reconstruct, and we do annually about four to five of those, three to five of those a year. But that's owner occupied already. And then we rebuild for the home owner. This program, we have only, we've done a subdivision in Kessel Heights. We are seven homes were built.
[1:00:29] in partnership with Habitat, but it was vacant land.
[1:00:36] So we've never demolished any particular structures
[1:00:40] on land that we were going to develop,
[1:00:42] but this program does offer that option.
[1:00:45] Actually, I'm just looking at the numbers thinking,
[1:00:48] you know, you do about five a year,
[1:00:49] over five years if you're demolishing versus not,
[1:00:53] you had a hundred houses in the land,
[1:00:55] you'd get five percent more, you know,
[1:00:57] If we're trying to get people with higher income to go into those neighborhoods they can buy the undeveloped land and
[1:01:04] Build a nicer home and we could get a higher percentage of them done if we were doing more demolish that it's not numbers game, right?
[1:01:12] So but they have to is it that they have to be vacant for a period of to three or four months before they would qualify?
[1:01:18] No, no, it's owner occupied. They're in the home. It's a volunteer program. They relocate
[1:01:24] Because it's a volunteer program. They voluntarily relocate
[1:01:28] And then we demolish and read.
[1:01:30] Yeah, I'm sorry I meant for the housing and fill neighborhood on the infill, you could
[1:01:34] still demolish it but it need to be vacant right for three to four months or something
[1:01:38] like that.
[1:01:39] All right.
[1:01:41] I would think it would need to be vacant, that's a legal question.
[1:01:45] Okay.
[1:01:47] There may not be as many a qualify because it would, it's a different qualification there from
[1:01:52] the vacant.
[1:01:52] Okay.
[1:01:53] Any questions?
[1:01:55] Okay.
[1:01:55] Thank you.
[1:01:55] Thank you. Thank you very much for your presentation. Next item on the agenda is presentation by staff providing an overview of the City of Brian radio system.
[1:02:05] Our director of information technology. Wait, no, I'll change your title, didn't I?
[1:02:11] I've been demoted. See if I've got it wrong again. Bernie Aker is here to give this presentation.
[1:02:18] Whatever he is, Mayor Council thank you for the time to present this to you.
[1:02:26] This is a second year, phase two, second year of a two year project.
[1:02:31] We started the project, well let me start here.
[1:02:34] This is the city radio timeline, basically your take away from this is our existing technology
[1:02:43] that we're using at the city is now approximately 15 years old.
[1:02:46] That's not too old from a radio perspective, but it is reaching its end of life in 2018 and we are having an increasingly more difficult time getting components to support this radio system.
[1:03:02] And if you also look there in 2009, we moved the public safety system off of this radio system and moved it to BVWACs, which we're a member of and Councilman Sutherland is, it's on the board of that entity.
[1:03:19] And public safety is operated on the BVWACs system.
[1:03:22] and successfully. Our goal in 2018 is to decommission that old 800 megahertz system, which will be a day of celebration for us, and I'm not sure if Jason will be happy about that, but he's loved that system. It's worked very well for them over the years, but that's the plan right now.
[1:03:44] Now, that's, this is phase two.
[1:03:48] Phase one, we started over at B.T.U.
[1:03:51] We have been able to purchase this Moto Turbo system at a significantly lower price as
[1:03:56] I presented last year than it would have cost us to incorporate all of our radio system
[1:04:02] onto the B.V.W.A.C. system.
[1:04:05] A little bit of history here for you.
[1:04:07] In 1991, Mike here worked for Texas Communications and installed the radio system over at B.T.U.
[1:04:18] And now he's a part of the decommissioning of it.
[1:04:21] What is that? 25, 26 years later.
[1:04:23] So he's pretty old.
[1:04:30] The system we're putting into place is no longer analog.
[1:04:34] It's a digital based system.
[1:04:35] There's millions of these systems deployed around the world, and just to give you something to relate to in that last bullet, you know entities such as TNPA, Lake Jackson Public Works, LaPort, Porta, Houston, Galveston, Ferry Landing, a lot of folks that we can relate to are already using this system.
[1:04:54] System basically, the main reason we wanted to go to this particular system is the safety aspect.
[1:05:03] It has manned down feature, it has the loan worker feature, also it has emergency button operations,
[1:05:09] and it improves our radio coverage.
[1:05:12] Plus it has a GPS location, so we know exactly where someone's at.
[1:05:16] Bernie, what's the manned down feature?
[1:05:19] There's a, if a person is out on working line, working line,
[1:05:25] There's an emergency button that just it automatically notifies us if if they don't respond
[1:05:38] Give you an idea of where we put our towers little red dots there if you can see them on your screen are
[1:05:44] The location of our towers and to give you a better understanding of the coverage
[1:05:49] There it is there our weakest area if you want to call it that is out towards called well
[1:05:56] In the future, we'd like to get a tower, some place out there along 21, perhaps future sub-station would be ideal.
[1:06:07] This is what we plan on purchasing for the City of Bryan Public Works. It's a Public Works project.
[1:06:12] There are some other entities outside of Public Works that do use the radio system.
[1:06:18] This is how we've broken down the costs thus far, FY16.
[1:06:23] The total project was around $700,000.
[1:06:26] We came up with a formula of a 75, 25 split
[1:06:29] and that's based on radio accounts and usage.
[1:06:33] It basically is the lifeline for BTU.
[1:06:36] So BTU paid the line share of the project in 16
[1:06:42] and public works paid $65,000 already towards that.
[1:06:46] And then you can see the annual cost
[1:06:48] and the next segment there.
[1:06:50] Basically what we're asking for here is to purchase radios for the system for public works and you'll see that on item 7e we are purchasing these hope let me say this we are hoping to purchase these radios off of a Texas A&M contract that is already in place with Texas communications so we're hoping that you also prove item 7a tonight or we'll be pulling 7e because the 7a is the ILA with Texas A&M.
[1:07:22] And I wanted to do that fast.
[1:07:25] Any questions?
[1:07:29] Councilman Stoller.
[1:07:30] Thank you, Mayor.
[1:07:31] I just want to say a couple of things.
[1:07:33] Number one, Bernie and Mike do a wonderful job force.
[1:07:37] What they do is kind of like the Super Bowl
[1:07:40] with all those cameras running at one time
[1:07:42] and everybody talking on the radios and the sidelines
[1:07:45] and all the stuff.
[1:07:45] It's a very complicated system that they pursue and monitor
[1:07:50] and make sure it works for us all the time.
[1:07:52] And the other thing that's kind of thrown in here on top of them is that the BVWACs deal that's our
[1:07:58] Safety communication system and that has to be integrated with everything else we do
[1:08:01] So I want to thank you all very much. I've been doing with this for about three or four years with you all
[1:08:05] And I appreciate it very much. Thank you. Thank you, sir
[1:08:07] I appreciate your leadership on there and you're the comment
[1:08:12] Okay
[1:08:13] Thank you next item on the agenda is presentation by staff regarding annexation planning and possible options for annexation and Northwest
[1:08:21] West, Brasis County, key.
[1:08:23] Mayor and council, this presentation will be by Martin Zimmerman, our planner.
[1:08:29] Good afternoon, Mayor and council.
[1:08:31] We hear today because during your workshop meeting or your council discussion during the
[1:08:36] August 16 meeting, you asked staff to kind of look at some options for annexation in the
[1:08:42] area around the Reles campus.
[1:08:44] At the time during your discussion, you'll find that there may be some benefit derived from
[1:08:49] I'm annexing land around the relics campus and you wanted some more information, some more specific information and I'm here today to give you that specific information, some one on annexation, I hope I'm not going to bore you to death with some of the details.
[1:09:05] So if I do, please raise your hand and I'll move on.
[1:09:09] Just in general, why do cities annex these are pretty standard things that you will find.
[1:09:15] And there's a lot of information, the Texas Municipal League has a lot of information
[1:09:20] and experience on annexation.
[1:09:23] But these are really the six top reasons why I see these annex.
[1:09:27] And you can kind of see for yourself, you know, enable regulatory controls.
[1:09:31] It's one, perhaps, in your discussion that you had back in August, that was probably one
[1:09:36] of the things that you were maybe most interested in.
[1:09:39] And, you know, you see others on there protect the tax base, provide municipal services to
[1:09:44] a developing area in response to an uncertain legislative environment, you know, every time
[1:09:51] the legislature meets, there are attempts to curb city's ability to annex more property
[1:09:58] within to their city limits.
[1:10:00] So, you know, this may be the time to do an annexation because we don't know what's going
[1:10:04] to happen with this next legislative session.
[1:10:07] Life safety considerations, you know, as you may or may not know, and outside the city limits,
[1:10:13] But there's no requirements for building permits as such, if you want to make sure that there are structures that are built in a safer manner when the city has adopted building codes that would be one of those considerations.
[1:10:28] And in response to undesirable or unregulated land use, so you also probably know outside our city limits, there are no land use controls.
[1:10:36] any use that we otherwise would regulate by zoning within the city could locate just
[1:10:42] outside our city limits. In what we call the ETJ or the extraterritorial jurisdiction,
[1:10:49] which is in our case a three and a half mile area from our city limits, which is an area
[1:10:55] within which the city's ability to regulate anything is very limited. We have the authority
[1:11:02] to regulate subdivisions and we have the ability to annex, so we're actually the only one
[1:11:08] sick in annex in our ETJ. Our ETJ is currently three and a half miles because we have a population
[1:11:15] of 83,000, but that population reached 100,000, that ETJ could grow out in five miles.
[1:11:22] Currently, and there was some discussion at Jim meeting in August about an agreement about
[1:11:26] our ETJ boundaries. The City of Bryan has a boundary agreement with the City of College
[1:11:31] station. And I wanted to depict that here just briefly. We're actually talking to their staff right now, looking at updating that agreement that I believe is about 30 years old, essentially on the on the east side, you know, you see the Brian ETJ right there.
[1:11:49] It's just going past William D. Fitch Parkway, which is in the city of college station is the college stations ETJ extends into Grimes County.
[1:11:57] on the east side of town, on the west side of town, our ETJ is generally in the
[1:12:04] north of Highway 60, and then it crosses over the Brazos River into the
[1:12:10] adjoining county, which just escaped me.
[1:12:14] Types of annexation. One of the, it's been
[1:12:19] about eight years, well, it's been eight years since the city of Ryan and last
[1:12:23] last unilaterally considered annexation, what we call unilateral or city initiated annexation.
[1:12:30] At the time, there were several areas considered, but it was then decided to not proceed.
[1:12:34] Actually, the last city initiated annexation dates back to 1999.
[1:12:40] So, a lot of things have changed since then with regard to the annexation law.
[1:12:44] But fundamentally, and again, I'm just trying to give you a brief overview here as to how this works.
[1:12:49] But for the most part, when you've seen annexations over the last couple of years,
[1:12:54] those were in response to an owner initiated request.
[1:12:58] A developer that wanted to do a subdivision that saw to have city services for
[1:13:03] that new subdivision would request and petition to city for annexation.
[1:13:07] And then we would go through that process.
[1:13:10] As far as the city initiated annexation, there's really two types.
[1:13:13] There's the exempt annexation, which is an annexation that does not require
[1:13:19] what we call an annexation plan. What that is, I'm about to explain a little bit more detail,
[1:13:24] but the key here is that you could, under an exempt annexation, you could annex as many
[1:13:29] traits as you want it to, as possible, so long as there are no more than 99 dwelling units in
[1:13:35] that area that you would define to annex. Any area that has more than 99 dwelling units in it,
[1:13:42] under this, under the unilateral annexation, would require an annexation plan, which really
[1:13:48] is a three-year process. The city's a Brian current annexation plan which the state law requires
[1:13:54] that we have one is basically that we don't have a plan or we don't have a three-year annexation
[1:14:00] plan which is posted on our website as required by state law. You adopted that back in 2007.
[1:14:08] You also back in 2007 adopted some criteria that you would want to use when considering annexations.
[1:14:18] It kind of goes back to that first slide that I had as to why do cities annex some of
[1:14:23] those criteria, but one of the criteria that I do want to point out is when you think
[1:14:27] about annexation, what you said back in 2007 is when we're looking at annexations, we
[1:14:32] don't just want to draw lines through somebody's property, we want to really think about it
[1:14:38] or plan it if I may use that term.
[1:14:41] And, you know, the annexation area should have logical boundaries, it shouldn't go to, you know, divide neighborhoods, and so I just wanted to just wanted to remind you that that is one of the criteria that you have adopted as a, as a, as a council.
[1:14:56] It's Texas local government code chapter 43.
[1:15:00] Is the regulation that includes everything you ever wanted to know about annexation. Again, cities must have an annexation plan, and I don't really want to bore you with all these requirements there. The big thing here is that we as the city of Ryan have not annexed in more than three years, which based on our current size of 45 square miles would allow us to annex up to 30% of our current land area or up to 13.5 square miles.
[1:15:29] at this particular point in time.
[1:15:33] Under the exam process, again, one of these are the requirements of the local government
[1:15:39] code.
[1:15:40] The process, basically, that I briefly described with, you know, you would identify an area
[1:15:47] that has no more than 99 dwellings in it.
[1:15:50] It doesn't need an annexation plan, obviously there will be a notification to property owners.
[1:15:55] You go through a public hearing process of planning and zoning commission and the council.
[1:16:00] before you then adopt an annexation ordinance.
[1:16:04] The time frame for completion of the exempt annexation
[1:16:07] is about four to five months.
[1:16:09] A three year process is very much prescribed by the state law.
[1:16:14] And I included some of the deadlines
[1:16:18] or the milestones in here that you have to have.
[1:16:22] Basically, in order to have a three year annexation plan,
[1:16:26] you have to identify areas that you want to include in that plan.
[1:16:28] You want to do that very carefully because once they end the plan, changing them is rather difficult and they cannot be brought back or once they're removed, they cannot be brought back for a certain period of time.
[1:16:41] So placing areas in an annexation plan is something that should be done very carefully, just like with anything with regard to annexation, it would be notices to property owners.
[1:16:50] There's a big cost factor here really, and I'm going to talk about cost in just a little
[1:16:55] bit.
[1:16:57] There has to be an inventory of services and facilities when you annex streets, existing
[1:17:03] streets into your city, you then become responsible for the future maintenance, for example.
[1:17:08] You kind of want to know what you're getting into it, so I would describe it more as a due
[1:17:12] diligence process as if when you're buying property.
[1:17:15] So you have to have really an inventory of existing services and
[1:17:21] perhaps facilities that you might annex, and you have to do that within eight months of establishing a three year annexation plan.
[1:17:28] You then have to hold public hearings within 11 months, and if the residents of areas that you may be looking at annexing are protesting the proposed annexation, then you have to start negotiations and perhaps enter into some sort of arbitration.
[1:17:45] and with those property owners.
[1:17:48] There's the city of Midloatheon has a lot of experience
[1:17:51] with this.
[1:17:52] I've had the pleasure of listening to their experience
[1:17:55] at several seminars that I and I believe Janice
[1:17:58] has attended to in Austin several times.
[1:18:02] So an annexation plan for that area
[1:18:04] has to be finalized within 18 months
[1:18:06] and then within three years
[1:18:08] or at the between the three year anniversary
[1:18:12] of you establishing the plan
[1:18:13] and three years and 31 days you have to adopt or you have to make a decision? Yes, sir?
[1:18:18] Oh, that's too much. Okay, I'll move on. I'll go through some maps now. So what is 13.5
[1:18:25] square miles look like? Essentially here we drew a square around the Brian original town side.
[1:18:31] 13.5 miles, it's about 3.5 miles, 3.5 miles square. You look at it from Highway 21, probably from
[1:18:38] about 2018 to highway six.
[1:18:41] So if we're looking at the,
[1:18:43] the Reles campus itself is 2000 acres.
[1:18:46] There was some discussion.
[1:18:48] I believe at your August meeting,
[1:18:49] you know, should the Reles campus be included or not?
[1:18:52] Well, it's, it's, it does not generate as far as I know.
[1:18:55] I may be wrong to look at the finance guys,
[1:18:57] but it doesn't generate any tax revenue
[1:19:00] because it is owned by a public entity.
[1:19:02] So just to kind of give you a,
[1:19:04] as some spatial idea of what 8,650 acres look like.
[1:19:10] If we look in an area, for example,
[1:19:13] coming from the existing city limits,
[1:19:14] just north of Villamaria going all the way to highway 21,
[1:19:18] this is an area that has about five and a half square miles.
[1:19:21] We would have 155 homesteads in here,
[1:19:25] which then again means this could not be an area
[1:19:27] that could be annexed under the exempt statute.
[1:19:29] We're looking at a three year annexation plan
[1:19:32] in order to proceed this way.
[1:19:34] I think some of you mentioned at the meeting that you wanted to really protect the area
[1:19:39] around the campus, the aesthetics, the land uses, and so forth, so perhaps in an area
[1:19:46] that looks more like this that is kind of surrounds the relic campus, we just kind of drew
[1:19:52] a quick and dirty line and said, you know, there's 550 parcels in here, about 13 square miles,
[1:19:58] there's about 276 home states in here, again, this would require a three year annexation
[1:20:04] plan.
[1:20:05] I want to remind you that your comprehensive plan that you just adopted back in October
[1:20:09] addressed the issue of annexation and when we talk about annexation and you know the
[1:20:15] amount of land the city can annex or establishing the annexation plan it might be a good idea
[1:20:20] to not just look at one area but perhaps think about you know are there other areas where
[1:20:25] the city could benefit from annexation some of these may seem familiar to you.
[1:20:30] they were a discussion back in 2008.
[1:20:35] There are some new areas.
[1:20:36] The comprehensive plan suggests that, you know,
[1:20:39] the city should look at really looking at annexations
[1:20:42] and do some and really establish a plan
[1:20:45] for annexation for future growth in those areas.
[1:20:49] So really the policy considerations that you have
[1:20:51] is, you know, how does the city's,
[1:20:53] how does annexation support the city's vision
[1:20:56] and what goal does annexation accomplish
[1:20:59] and at what cost.
[1:21:00] The policy tools that you have in you disposal are the comprehensive plan, your capital improvement
[1:21:05] plan, where you plan capital expenditures on a yearly basis based on a rating system,
[1:21:13] water wastewater extension policies and subdivision regulations, which often play hand-in-hand
[1:21:18] as properties develop in our ETJ or in the areas that are growing, really a fiscal impact analysis.
[1:21:26] You know, you're looking at obviously annexation and opponents of annexation often point out, well, this is just a land grab
[1:21:33] You just trying to get money property taxes from me. Well, at the same time, I think it's a two-way street
[1:21:39] You know, I think if a city is committed to orderly growth to have really raised the bar
[1:21:46] Have attractive corridors and development in those corridors. You know, perhaps there should be some sort of investment in certain types of
[1:21:53] infrastructure, that would be up to your discretion, and then going back to the evaluation criteria
[1:22:00] that you established back in 2007. Now, as far as cost goes, it's without knowing exactly
[1:22:08] which area might be annexed. We just have some very tentative numbers here, but I think the
[1:22:16] big number in this, one of the big numbers in this list right here, would be a reimbursement
[1:22:22] for the emergency services district.
[1:22:24] Every property in the county right now is part of the emergency services district.
[1:22:31] And so it is taxed by that district.
[1:22:33] If you annex land out of that district, you have to reimburse that district.
[1:22:38] We have contacted, in this particular case, the emergency service district for within which
[1:22:43] is the area around the railless campus to kind of get a better ballpark idea as to what
[1:22:49] cost we might be looking at, the number that I listed here at about $21 to Acre was based on
[1:22:55] the amount that the district had when we annexed I believe it. Well, when we did the most recent
[1:23:00] annexation for the Anderson, I'm sorry, yeah, the Anderson tract on Highway 47 and the Sanderson
[1:23:08] Farms property. So that was about what we had to pay that emergency services district at the time.
[1:23:16] We would have to do a land boundary survey, which the price for that you see right there,
[1:23:22] there's obviously certain notification requirements.
[1:23:25] The big unknown at this time is really the inventory of the services for what services
[1:23:30] might be needed, what facilities actually, what conditions are the road, and yes, it gets
[1:23:34] that detailed when you establish an annexation plan, you really want to know what you're annexing
[1:23:40] because you might, you want to avoid future liabilities or really make informed decisions of the
[1:23:45] the areas that you bring into the city.
[1:23:48] I mentioned the service plan negotiation, an arbitration.
[1:23:52] I have no idea what that might cost at this time.
[1:23:56] And then perhaps the additional cost to provide additional city services, you know, police
[1:24:02] services, fire services, solid waste services, you might need a new trash truck.
[1:24:06] If you annex about 30% of your current city, you know, the existing fleet might not be able
[1:24:12] to cover that.
[1:24:13] I don't know that.
[1:24:13] but others could tell us.
[1:24:17] And then, you know, it would be who
[1:24:19] us to really look at hiring an annexation consultant team,
[1:24:22] perhaps made up of an attorney.
[1:24:25] Somebody that's really good with numbers and an engineer
[1:24:28] and others to really help us make an informed decision
[1:24:32] and drop an annexation time and put staff time on here,
[1:24:36] which, as you know, is priceless.
[1:24:38] So possible next steps in this process
[1:24:43] But what we would suggest to you is to hire an annexation consultant team and really help us define or define areas for annexation and prepare a fiscal impact analysis.
[1:24:55] I think that would really be the smart way of going about looking at bringing more land into the city to make sure that we're not putting future generations in a bind by annexing a landscape.
[1:25:11] So, you know, they'll be developed and might not have the property values in the future that we might desire where we can have this balance of added land area and provision of services in the same, you know, to the same level that we have it in other parts of the
[1:25:32] open to any questions.
[1:25:36] I don't know if I can wait.
[1:25:38] I don't know if I can wait.
[1:25:40] Martin, great presentation.
[1:25:43] Councilman Pinionale, one that asked for this to be done
[1:25:46] back in Augustin.
[1:25:47] Could you show the map with the Rellis campus
[1:25:50] and the blue circle around Rellis?
[1:25:55] I think it's the one before.
[1:25:56] Is that the square one before?
[1:25:58] Yeah, the square one.
[1:25:59] Yeah, that one right there.
[1:26:01] What I was thinking when we were talking about this
[1:26:03] is the Rellis is going to be developed
[1:26:06] by the end of 18 with the $200 million with the stuff.
[1:26:12] Also, there's seven research buildings
[1:26:15] going to be constructed between now and then,
[1:26:18] a 10,000 student building campus,
[1:26:21] plus the blend campus is going to be out there,
[1:26:24] plus everything that they already have out there.
[1:26:26] And this is kind of what I was thinking to Annex
[1:26:29] would look like, this is around the relics
[1:26:30] because A&M wants to be protected,
[1:26:32] they don't want just anything built around them.
[1:26:34] And so to simplify it, I think that's kind of where we ought to go.
[1:26:38] And also, I think Relus needs to be in there because there'll be some commercial operations there that can be taxed.
[1:26:45] That we could benefit from taxing.
[1:26:47] And the infrastructure is there for Relus, so what you'd have to add to that is probably the least expensive way to do the annexation.
[1:26:55] and I think, and that's in that, that river over there,
[1:26:58] the Brasis River, that'd be great
[1:26:59] because we could create a river walk or something
[1:27:01] over there one day like San Antonio does.
[1:27:04] But anyway, that's kind of where I was trying to get to,
[1:27:07] is that keep it simple and there can't be that many houses
[1:27:10] in that area and protect the realist campus.
[1:27:13] Sort of like College Station did with the school,
[1:27:16] with Texas A&M, it'll be the same kind of setup.
[1:27:19] And I think we can really reap some tremendous benefits
[1:27:21] from that.
[1:27:23] Just one point in my conversations with John Barton over the Relis campus he had told
[1:27:32] me that there are no plans to have any actual property taxable entities there.
[1:27:39] That's true.
[1:27:40] That's true.
[1:27:41] However, those people are going to do research there, becoming from mobile, Exxon, they'll
[1:27:46] be coming from Ford and Chevrolet and those guys are taxable.
[1:27:49] So some of their stuff is going to be taxable plus the sales tax that they generate there can be can be given to city, right?
[1:27:56] Well, that's different than what they told me so I'll verify that that can be right. Yeah
[1:28:01] Yeah, they won't own land on Texas and M state property and therefore they write a and that that's how they have done it in the past is a and M
[1:28:10] Owns all of the buildings except for blend that's true. However, but the stuff inside is personal property owned by other than
[1:28:18] Texas and young people so that'll be taxed and they'll have a lot of equipment in there.
[1:28:22] An example of that is over by the Health Science Center, the NCTM, so the NCTM has other
[1:28:32] agencies that are located inside and they're still zero taxable value.
[1:28:37] I'll check and make sure.
[1:28:38] If they're non-profit, right, but these guys aren't going to be non-profit, that's going
[1:28:41] to be a big time deal.
[1:28:42] And plus the area around there, if they can't locate on campus, they won't locate near
[1:28:47] here there, so. Right. Which is the plan? Yeah. Right.
[1:28:54] Other questions?
[1:28:55] Will you go back to the area that has the blue but not the squares. That area. How many
[1:29:08] square miles is that? 13 square miles. 13? Okay. But see there's 276 homes in there. Is
[1:29:16] Is that homesteads or homes 276?
[1:29:19] It's homestead, it's a quick and dirty
[1:29:21] pool from the, it's a good, may not be a home there.
[1:29:23] There may be more dwelling units on the ground, actually.
[1:29:26] But I think it would be an error to reach out
[1:29:33] and annex the relic campus without annexing this large area
[1:29:38] in between Highway 47 and 28, 18.
[1:29:44] And that has enough homes in it that we would have to go through the three-year process.
[1:29:51] That is correct.
[1:29:52] Yes.
[1:29:53] That was the previous slide that I have right here.
[1:29:56] Now, for this area, if you remember part of the Comprehensive Planes...
[1:30:00] The West Area plan, when, when Flynn was still thinking about going on another property. So we, we kind of have a more defined vision for a lot of this area already in place. There, there will be buses and there will be monences in all those areas. And one of the important parts like on this one is covering both sides of highway 21, not just, not just one. That was, yes, that was from interest from Texas A&M also is that
[1:30:29] I think pushing for us to do this to I think the slides showing now would be the most desirable area to annex
[1:30:38] Yeah, because I
[1:30:41] Don't think we will derive significant benefit from
[1:30:46] Taxes on the relus campus, but that's where a consultant comes in but it won't cost anything to annex them
[1:30:53] So if they do put anything out there
[1:30:55] It would exceed or would it if we if we annex area showing now in blue and the
[1:31:02] railing campus that would exceed our 13.5 miles. That is correct. That issue is
[1:31:08] you annex a lot of land that has I mean the way we looked at it and talking to
[1:31:13] an M they weren't very interested in being being annexed unless we were going to
[1:31:17] build the roads and all that form and since they don't pay taxes we're not
[1:31:20] not really interested in building the roads for them, but that's why in all of our plans
[1:31:27] up to now we have not included the railless campus because it takes, it's 2,000 acres
[1:31:33] that it takes to annex something that the citizens will get very little benefit from.
[1:31:41] And I think we need to be sensitive to what A&M wants with regard to the annexation.
[1:31:48] But at any point in time that A&M wanted us to annex that property and if it was, you
[1:31:55] know, if an agreement was acceptable to us, that could be annexed under a owner request.
[1:32:02] That's correct.
[1:32:03] But we don't, we don't lose that acreage with regard to our ability to initiate it.
[1:32:08] That's exactly right.
[1:32:09] That's a good idea.
[1:32:10] Yeah.
[1:32:12] So, and we've had several references to Texas A&M.
[1:32:15] You know, the, the railless campus is really system driven and not university driven.
[1:32:20] Is it the system?
[1:32:21] You mentioned Barton is, is this, if we had a John Barton was in our conversations relaying
[1:32:30] information that I think both President Young and Chancellor Sharp had some concerns moving
[1:32:37] that moving forward and had expressed their desire to work with us to get those areas annexed.
[1:32:45] Okay, so they're requesting at least some generic type of consideration of it?
[1:32:52] Yeah, and there's no formal request just in our meetings they expressed their desire to
[1:32:57] have this annex, but I would expect and hope that we do get their support moving forward.
[1:33:08] I agree with Councilman Hartman, however, I think the most important thing now is that
[1:33:14] to get this done as they get their buildings on the ground so that when someone cries
[1:33:20] to come in associated with a banana on campus, they're not just allowed to build anything
[1:33:25] around there.
[1:33:26] You know, it's got to be controlled by us.
[1:33:28] I think it'd be a hard advantage to control what's there plus if there's any kind of streets
[1:33:33] featuring anything to be built, we'll have to maintain them anyway eventually so we can have some control inside.
[1:33:38] Are you talking with in-rollers campus?
[1:33:39] No, I'm talking out around-rollers campus.
[1:33:41] So what you could do is you could annex around-rollers campus but not too big that slows the system down and then later on if we see there's money there, annex-rollers too.
[1:33:51] So, Martin, this area where it looks like the browsers are ever used to be but no longer is but it's still within Braseless County.
[1:34:01] You know, that's little hoop that over there on the left bottom left side
[1:34:07] Where I'm just thinking you know down the road do we don't have that's not contiguous to anything is that why that's designed there
[1:34:15] So that could be considered at a later date or we got Sutherland's river walk to consider here
[1:34:20] Again, this was just a quick and dirty how how you know with 13 what do 13 square miles look like there's there was no
[1:34:28] So there was no intention to leave an area out and, you know, based on the conversations
[1:34:33] that we listened to about, you know, a couple of months ago, this is this kind of what we
[1:34:37] came up with.
[1:34:38] Now, I do need a little bit of direction like which direction you want to go if anywhere
[1:34:43] because, you know, we want to see, do you want us to pursue an exempt area annexation to kind
[1:34:50] of see, you know, if we just went around the campus, how many homes this that would be, what
[1:34:55] that that could entail, or do we need to look at an expanded area for an annexation
[1:35:00] plan, and take it a step further what I said on one of my slides.
[1:35:04] Do we want to look at, again, 13.5 square miles, because we have an annexed in three years.
[1:35:10] Do we want to do all that over the next three years in just one area, or do we want to look
[1:35:15] at other areas that might have development pressures, or that might also be important?
[1:35:21] So in order to move forward, in order to perhaps engage a consultant, we would kind of want to know which direction the council wants us to go.
[1:35:31] Mayor Pro Tem.
[1:35:33] I would assume that next logical step be to hire the consultant.
[1:35:39] That would be direction I think.
[1:35:42] Yeah, when you said 200,000 on that was that sort of for the whole, I know that it's a probably a guesstimate, right?
[1:35:49] So, but was your guesstimate assuming over the three-year process the team would cost this because you referred to the team later in the presentation version?
[1:35:59] I would envision it to be a consultant team that with staff support would, would see this project go through from start.
[1:36:05] And the 200,000 is over three years, not annually.
[1:36:08] in the ballpark area.
[1:36:10] Depending on, you know, there's RFP type process.
[1:36:14] Exactly.
[1:36:15] How big a ballpark?
[1:36:18] Is it pretty real?
[1:36:19] How big a riverway this could be?
[1:36:21] Just really.
[1:36:21] A real big ballpark.
[1:36:22] It's ballfield.
[1:36:24] Mayor, I think that we need to scope it because I think,
[1:36:27] for me, the most important thing, is controlling around relus.
[1:36:31] So I think instead of giving the whole town to look at,
[1:36:34] we ought to tell them, look at relis,
[1:36:35] and see what the other annex around relus
[1:36:37] listen and secure that area. So that way it may be a little cheaper too. Yeah. Well,
[1:36:44] isn't that what we're doing here? Well, I mean, is it worth saying if there are any areas around town
[1:36:49] that we would also be considering doing as to look at that? And it's beyond beyond this presentation,
[1:36:54] right? Again, I'm not just saying this because I like to say it, but your comprehensive plan actually
[1:36:59] recommends that. So I just wanted to throw that out there and remind you. Yeah, but we can do that,
[1:37:04] But not now. Later. I know that's what I think there's a two minutes importance. There's time to get this one right here to get this guy done before we get locked out of something later on anything
[1:37:17] else.
[1:37:18] All right. Thank you very much Martin. Appreciate it. Okay. Next item is a presentation by Shannon over be regarding additional fiscal year 2017 funding for the convention and visitors bureau relocation.
[1:37:34] May your council thank you so much for your time today and you'll have to excuse me
[1:37:38] I'm getting over a cold so in case I have a little coughing fit.
[1:37:42] Real quickly I wanted to identify a couple of people that are here with me today.
[1:37:47] I've got some of my executive board including Jim Ross our chair, Jerome Rectorick, who's
[1:37:54] from the other city council who's on my board Dan Eichler, Dr. Gary Ellis and of course
[1:38:00] our spend heart am inserves from the city of Brian.
[1:38:04] And I've brought Cynthia Brown, my director of finance,
[1:38:07] and then James Halliburton is our architect, and
[1:38:11] I'm here to tell you a little bit about something that I'm pushing it the right way.
[1:38:16] First of all, just as a reminder, our current mission statement is that we represent the entire
[1:38:21] Brasis Valley to enhance economic and social growth in Brian College Station and
[1:38:26] throughout the Bras's Valley by marketing, promoting, developing, and coordinating tourism
[1:38:31] conventions, sports, and hospitality opportunities in our area.
[1:38:37] As you know, we have been looking for a new office, so that's what I'm here to talk to you
[1:38:42] about a little bit about today.
[1:38:44] I'm going to tell you the history of where the CVB has been.
[1:38:47] Our search over the past three years, the new location that we hope to move into by July
[1:38:52] First, the funding needs that we are looking for and then also ask for some feedback from
[1:39:01] y'all.
[1:39:02] Do we lose?
[1:39:03] Sorry.
[1:39:04] Okay.
[1:39:06] Can y'all still see it on yours?
[1:39:08] Okay.
[1:39:09] First of all, history for over 30 years we were located on the corner of tarot and university
[1:39:15] drive and approximately 5,000 square feet.
[1:39:19] We lived there rent-free, it was owned by the City of College Station and provided to us rent-free.
[1:39:25] We were responsible for the upkeep of the building and if any of you visited that building,
[1:39:30] it was falling down around our ears and my understanding is our upkeep more than paid the rent.
[1:39:35] So the city sold that entire block three years ago and we moved out.
[1:39:42] And our purpose at that time was to find a location still on university drive that could serve our needs
[1:39:49] for three years while we looked at the options of where we could go at that after that.
[1:39:55] We currently are on university drive in 3,000 square feet, so we downsized, added to additional
[1:40:02] staff people that smaller space, and our rent is approximately $16 a square foot.
[1:40:09] Is that 16 a month annually?
[1:40:14] Yes, sorry.
[1:40:16] Thank goodness.
[1:40:17] I have a come up.
[1:40:19] No.
[1:40:19] Oh, yeah.
[1:40:23] And if you're not familiar with where we are now, have any, do you, any of you know where
[1:40:28] we are at this time?
[1:40:30] Mr. Hardman certainly does.
[1:40:32] As we are, we are the old Brazil's real estate company,
[1:40:36] is that what it was called.
[1:40:37] It used to be located between the holiday and express
[1:40:41] and university title.
[1:40:43] We're a little bit hidden.
[1:40:45] We're in a much smaller location.
[1:40:46] As I said, we're sitting in each other's laps.
[1:40:48] We also, in addition, have three outside storage units,
[1:40:52] not on site, but off-site storage units
[1:40:54] that we have to utilize for all of our equipment and stuff.
[1:40:58] University Drive still is geographically neutral.
[1:41:01] It's basically the border between the City of College Station and City of Brian essentially.
[1:41:08] It's kind of the main thoroughfare and we thought that's where we wanted to be.
[1:41:12] We do serve currently as the visitor center.
[1:41:15] In our old location, we saw the numbers going down on the number of visitors that came into
[1:41:19] our location as the visitor center.
[1:41:21] We've seen them drop even more drastically and I'll address that in a minute.
[1:41:26] But over the past two and a half years, we've looked at a variety of options of where we
[1:41:30] can locate. We looked at some space out by Veterans Park that would actually be part
[1:41:36] of the University's land. We looked at joint space with the Arts Council and the Texas
[1:41:42] Aggies go to War Exhibit now that it's coming back to the community. And the most recent
[1:41:47] place that we looked was at Benjamin Knox's location, which again is on University Drive.
[1:41:52] He purchased some additional land behind his train depot and we evaluated that to the tune
[1:41:59] of approximately $26 a square foot annually on that, but it would be joint space between
[1:42:04] the Arts Council and the Texas Aggies go to war.
[1:42:07] But due to changes in the market and feedback from our stakeholders, both of our funding
[1:42:11] partners, the City of Bryan and City of College Station, we took a step back from the Benjamin
[1:42:17] Knox location and started looking for something that was lower rent, closer to what we are currently
[1:42:22] paying at $16, $16, not necessarily on a high rent university drive frontage.
[1:42:29] We were told because of the increase in hotels and the decrease in demand and the decrease
[1:42:38] in occupancy of our hotels, we really needed to focus more on sales and spend our money on
[1:42:42] sales and marketing rather than on having a storefront on high rent.
[1:42:46] And really, we found that there's not a need for a permanent visitor center within our office.
[1:42:52] As I said, we saw numbers going down.
[1:42:53] We purchased a mobile visitor center to take visitor information to the visitor.
[1:42:58] So when Texas Reds is here, or First Fridays is downtown,
[1:43:02] we bring the mobile visitor center down here to the visitors to provide visitor information.
[1:43:07] And we identified four possible locations all over Bryan and College Station.
[1:43:12] We looked from the north end of Brianne to the south end of college station and evaluated
[1:43:17] them.
[1:43:17] The board evaluated all four of those locations and came up with the final decision.
[1:43:22] And this is it.
[1:43:24] 614 Holliman Drive East in college stations on the corner of Dartmouth and Holliman Drive.
[1:43:31] That's the loft location at Wolf Penn.
[1:43:35] It is a doomed restaurant location, apparently.
[1:43:37] It's the Arbano Restaurant and Red Mango, that whole section on the bottom floor there.
[1:43:44] It's approximately just shy of 7,000 square feet.
[1:43:48] It will house 12 offices, plenty of intern and volunteer workspace and storage space.
[1:43:54] We'll be able to get rid of those three offsite storage unit.
[1:43:58] It also will have a board room, which is significant because currently our board meeting is next
[1:44:04] month and Cynthia and I are scrambling trying to find meeting space in a hotel or somewhere
[1:44:09] to have that meeting which we do every month for our board meetings. But it's also significant
[1:44:15] because it's adequate space for small community meetings to utilize that space as well and it will
[1:44:21] be configured in such a way that it can be locked off from the rest of the office and available for
[1:44:26] other groups to use. We initially were looking for about 5,500 to 6,000 square feet. There's an
[1:44:34] additional 871 square feet that's being offered to us significantly at a significant discount
[1:44:41] on rent in between Redmango and Sauvy Boutique, which is the retail, the one retail establishment
[1:44:47] in this location at the moment.
[1:44:50] And we, the board is looking at some options for how to utilize that space.
[1:44:56] Some of the things we've talked about is just storage, bringing all our storage
[1:45:00] There's stuff back over there and not have to pay anything for off-site storage, or possibly incubator office space for some of our clients when they're holding meetings or events here or tournaments or conferences. They may not be housed here. They may office in Austin, for example, and they just need kind of a home office here during their conference. Or something maybe we could sublet it to another community organization. But what's important to me is I want this not to be just for three or five years. I want this to be our forever home.
[1:45:29] So it offers that flexibility to expand in the future should the needs of the community chain.
[1:45:35] We're currently under negotiations and working on a lease agreement with our attorney
[1:45:40] and the owner of the property, but they are offering us some abated rent, some free rent
[1:45:48] or half rent for the first year in exchange for not offering build-out allowance.
[1:45:53] And these are some of the terms here.
[1:45:56] So for the first year, the cost would be $3,856 and so on.
[1:46:03] And it is a five-year lease that we're looking at
[1:46:05] with a five-year renewable option.
[1:46:10] So the funding needs and where we are today.
[1:46:13] And currently, and I noticed I put in a different number,
[1:46:17] but the total buildout and move estimate currently is about 469,000.
[1:46:23] but the numbers below reflect 490.
[1:46:26] And I'll explain what we're doing.
[1:46:28] So we looked at total buildout and move
[1:46:32] and everything it's gonna need for us to move into this space
[1:46:36] and working with our architect
[1:46:37] and actually the bids were due today at two o'clock.
[1:46:40] I left the office right before two to come down here.
[1:46:43] So I haven't had a chance to look at them,
[1:46:46] but those were due today for the construction.
[1:46:49] But what we're looking at doing
[1:46:52] and what the board has voted on is an equitable split of this cost.
[1:46:57] So for we would take total cost, the actual cost, these are just estimates and
[1:47:02] this is the maximum estimate here, but we would take 25% off the top and
[1:47:07] pay for that out of the Convention of Visitor Bureau's reserve fund.
[1:47:11] As you know, we have a policy for a reserve fund of 20% of operating budget.
[1:47:18] And we have slightly more than that, so we'll be able to cover the first 25% of the actual cost.
[1:47:26] With the estimated cost, that would be about $122,500.
[1:47:31] Of the remaining 75%, we would split it equitably between the two cities.
[1:47:36] The city of college station has already committed to 75% of the remaining 75.
[1:47:42] And that would be $275,625.
[1:47:45] And then the remaining 25% that we're asking for consideration from you, from the City of Brian would be 91,0875.
[1:47:55] And I would say that this is all estimate and maximum estimate, we are not asking for any money up front.
[1:48:04] What we've done with the City of College Station is in a separate agreement, said that we will bill after everything's been billed.
[1:48:12] and we've paid everything, we would bill actual amounts.
[1:48:16] So it wouldn't be that amount, it would be less, if that makes sense.
[1:48:22] I got a question.
[1:48:23] Do you have one or two reserve funds?
[1:48:26] We actually have the opportunity to have three.
[1:48:29] We have a strategic reserve fund for any strategic planning that we have.
[1:48:34] There's nothing in that account currently.
[1:48:36] We have an equipment replacement fund, which is set up to replace any equipment
[1:48:41] That has a shelf life of more than 12 months, so to replace vehicles or computer equipment, that sort of thing.
[1:48:47] And we've got enough money in there to think about 58,000 approximately to cover the next two years of equipment replacement.
[1:48:55] And then we have the operating reserve, which, as I said, should be at 20%.
[1:49:01] It's currently because of some other monies and things that's currently approximately 25%.
[1:49:08] So we would take it out of that reserve account.
[1:49:13] Shannon, I have one quick question.
[1:49:14] I'm sorry to interrupt you, but you talk about the buildout calls versus the move.
[1:49:19] Do you have the break out of the buildout is going to be versus whether it's going to cost a move?
[1:49:24] I don't have it.
[1:49:25] With me, we were waiting on all of the bids to come in from the contractors,
[1:49:29] but I can certainly get you that information when we go into that point.
[1:49:32] But the actual moving will be minimal, but it's new fixtures and furniture and things that we will need once we're there.
[1:49:42] So the vast majority of this is built out.
[1:49:44] Absolutely. It's currently a restaurant.
[1:49:48] So it's going to require gutting and building of walls and all of that.
[1:49:53] It's not like just go in and paint and fix up the offices.
[1:49:57] And what was the, just for a point of reference for some of us who are new and don't have the history here?
[1:50:03] What was the original total cost for the one that was on university near the Benjamin Knox gallery that got Nick's?
[1:50:12] It was going to be owned and sublet by Benjamin, so it was approximately $26 a square foot rent.
[1:50:22] So the buildout hadn't even been taken into account, we never got to that point.
[1:50:28] It was the rent, that was a point of contingency.
[1:50:30] The current space, they're giving us the free rent six months and then six months of
[1:50:37] half rent.
[1:50:38] The rent is $14 a square foot.
[1:50:42] And that's based on years they're not giving you sessions, right?
[1:50:47] That is how much it will be when we start paying $14 a square foot annually.
[1:50:53] for the $6,000 square feet that additional space they're giving us at $6.25 a square foot or something like that for that additional incubator or storage space.
[1:51:07] What's up with the incubator for a convention center and visitors bureau?
[1:51:11] It was just an idea, something that could possibly that space could be used for.
[1:51:15] We haven't identified exactly how we're going to use that space or build it out exactly.
[1:51:21] Well, 4-H is a great example.
[1:51:24] How about 7-on-7?
[1:51:25] 7-on-7 tournament is a great event in our community.
[1:51:28] They're not actually housed here.
[1:51:29] They're coming in from other areas of the state.
[1:51:32] And if the plan or while he was running that tournament needed a place just to keep his
[1:51:38] stuff and take notes and have a place to go at night and work on a computer, we could set
[1:51:43] it up.
[1:51:43] It has its own entrance that they could come in and utilize that space during their
[1:51:48] event. There was just a service that convention and visitor bureaus don't typically offer it
[1:51:53] might give us a competitive advantage when bidding on tournaments and conferences.
[1:51:57] That's a temporary offer. I want to think of an incubator. I think of like economic development
[1:52:02] and new businesses startups. You're not really talking about doing that. Just to help them to grow
[1:52:06] their events. So if they needed a space to come in and work during their event, it would just be
[1:52:10] temporary space. Yes, sir. Yeah, I think incubator wouldn't the best more is there.
[1:52:17] temporary facilities while their organization is in town which might extend
[1:52:22] earlier than and later than the actual event but only for a short period.
[1:52:27] So temporary event administration space is the intention.
[1:52:30] There you go, yes sir. And here's kind of the draft of how it's going to kind of be
[1:52:36] laid out and you'll see at the bottom on the on the left there is that
[1:52:40] multi-purpose space. So we haven't, the architect hasn't drawn anything in there as far as
[1:52:46] building anything so we haven't identified the board is going to be making a decision
[1:52:50] on that on how that space will be utilized. But you'll see it's going to be very multi-functional
[1:52:57] kind of, and I do want to point out too that there is no visitor center in this.
[1:53:06] This is
[1:53:10] It is not on a main thoroughfare and it is not very easy to find.
[1:53:13] This is office space.
[1:53:15] And again, for those of you who have come into our office where we currently are, if
[1:53:19] you were coming to meet with one of my sales team or my marketing team, you would have to
[1:53:25] probably climb over boxes or meet in the break room or none of the offices have doors.
[1:53:33] So there's not any privacy and it's not real conducive to have a client come in and meet
[1:53:39] with the sales team here in our current space and have them have confidence and yes I want to
[1:53:46] bring my large convention or a large event to your community. This will give us that capability
[1:53:53] because we'll have the board room, we'll have some function space and the office space will be laid
[1:53:57] out in such a way that it'll allow for creativity and for brainstorming and for collaborating with
[1:54:03] the partners and the team at work, but then it also allows for some presentations and some
[1:54:12] wooing of clients, if you will.
[1:54:19] This is a hard one. Do you have a question on that?
[1:54:21] I punched that earlier. I will take the opportunity to speak briefly.
[1:54:26] I've been on the CBB board just a little over a year now. I have learned a lot of the last year.
[1:54:34] When I got on the board, we were discussing the Benjamin Knox option and several comments that would make relative to that one.
[1:54:46] It was a very expensive option, a very expensive option.
[1:54:54] Historically, I think because of our ages, we think of a visitor center as being an office that visitors to the community,
[1:55:04] to stop into to get information about the community.
[1:55:08] I had to make that transition myself,
[1:55:11] but it didn't take long.
[1:55:13] If you start thinking about the level of usage
[1:55:15] of online information,
[1:55:18] if you're going to a city to visit,
[1:55:21] you don't wait till you get there
[1:55:23] to start learning about what's in that community
[1:55:26] that you might want to visit.
[1:55:27] You go online and learn that.
[1:55:29] And that has made a huge difference
[1:55:31] in the walk-in type visitor to the Convention of Visitors Bureau.
[1:55:38] So I do support this location, it's, you know, it's what?
[1:55:44] Mile in the conversation, but it's an office building.
[1:55:47] It's not a visitor center that out of town visitors would come in to learn about our community.
[1:55:54] Discussions have already taken place relative to two or
[1:55:59] For three small visitor centers, not on property owned by the CVB, but on property utilized and staffed and supplied with brochures and literature in various places in the community, including at least one in Brian.
[1:56:18] So I think that will meet the current and the limited needs for visitor center in the future.
[1:56:25] So I think this is a good option and hopefully, hopefully enter into the agreement with CBB.
[1:56:35] That is our next step is to identify those visitor center locations and of course the queen is one of my top locations in downtown because we don't want the visitors to have to come find us.
[1:56:46] We want to be where the visitors are and that's hard to do just in a location on university drive.
[1:56:53] If it needs to be some place that where people congregate downtown, Texas A&M, somewhere on the university drive where there's a lot of people.
[1:57:03] So we'll work on that in our next step, but this is our first step.
[1:57:08] Councilman Simon.
[1:57:09] Yes, thank you, Mayor.
[1:57:10] Shannon, I just had one more quick question.
[1:57:12] Yes, sir.
[1:57:13] On, you talked about the city of color stations paying the 75, the city of Brian's going to pay the 25.
[1:57:19] Those numbers that are being agreed upon, the 275 and the 91,000, is that the maximum?
[1:57:25] I just want to make sure that you said actual invoices, I didn't want it to be, we approved 91 it come in at 150.
[1:57:31] Now, I worked really closely with James with our architect and really working through the numbers and that is the maximum amount that we feel very comfortable with saying that it will not exceed that amount.
[1:57:45] So that's why we want to do everything post, and don't give us the money up front, let
[1:57:50] us invoice you after we've already paid everything, and then we'll be able to provide you with
[1:57:54] So you're going to save us some money then?
[1:57:58] My director of finance knows this.
[1:58:00] I'm a chief skater at home and a pinney pinnacle, I do the same thing at work, so.
[1:58:04] Thank you.
[1:58:05] I think you could say that if it comes in over that total amount, CVB pays the dividend.
[1:58:10] Absolutely.
[1:58:11] That's what I like to hear.
[1:58:12] Absolutely. Councilman Savo. Thank you Mayor. A couple of questions you know or three or four anyway. How much square footage of office space do you have? Do you have now?
[1:58:23] Right out I think 3100 at 3100 now. Okay, and how much office space have you calculated that you need?
[1:58:31] We estimated for a board room and storage space everything about 55 to 6,000. Okay, and then how much storage how much storage room do you need?
[1:58:40] We currently have three offsite storage units.
[1:58:43] How much square feet?
[1:58:46] Are they ten by ten?
[1:58:48] Two, three hundred.
[1:58:51] Three ten by ten, give or take.
[1:58:54] Okay, and then how much do you plan for fixtures and furniture to go in the building?
[1:59:00] I don't have the breakdown, but that's the total amount with everything you need.
[1:59:03] That's in half a million dollars.
[1:59:05] Three model and fixtures and furniture.
[1:59:07] Everything's included.
[1:59:09] Thank you.
[1:59:09] and architecture fees.
[1:59:10] Okay.
[1:59:14] Any other questions?
[1:59:16] Here's just a few of the drawings I will share,
[1:59:18] this is the reception area, it'll be branded.
[1:59:21] Because one side of the whole thing
[1:59:23] in its long and narrow, if you've been in the restaurant,
[1:59:26] it's just two restaurants.
[1:59:27] This long and narrow glass on one side, windows on one side.
[1:59:30] So the walls will all be made out of glass
[1:59:33] so that the light will come all the way through.
[1:59:35] Just a couple of the drawings that we've already done.
[1:59:38] And I'd appreciate any feedback
[1:59:40] or any other questions that you may have,
[1:59:42] you've got my contact information.
[1:59:44] And again, I've got the architect
[1:59:46] and some of my board members here
[1:59:47] that if you have any questions of them, too.
[1:59:51] Thank you.
[1:59:52] We mentioned the reserve, it should be 20,
[1:59:55] but it was at 25, is that,
[1:59:57] when you say it should be at 20,
[1:59:59] is that just a,
[2:00:00] I'm just curious how that works. That's our policy is for us to have an operating reserve at 20% of our total budget. And our total budget is a little less than we have projected for this current year, as well as just in changes. We've just accumulated because of interest or whatever. It's just kind of gone up slightly to about 25%. Yes, that policy was set by our board last year. Okay.
[2:00:27] Okay.
[2:00:27] The policy is continually discussed.
[2:00:32] Yeah.
[2:00:34] Okay.
[2:00:35] Fair enough.
[2:00:35] Fair enough.
[2:00:36] Thank you.
[2:00:37] Thank you for your presentation, Shannon.
[2:00:40] So, any council committee reports?
[2:00:43] District one?
[2:00:45] Councilor.
[2:00:46] We're in.
[2:00:48] My car.
[2:00:50] We haven't met for the Bryan Business Council.
[2:00:52] We didn't have a meeting yesterday.
[2:00:53] So, no.
[2:00:53] nothing as of yet for Bryan Business Council, the Bryan
[2:00:59] Callestation, I'm sorry, where are we at?
[2:01:05] Councilman Madison and I are on the committee with
[2:01:07] next day in him, student liaison, I believe.
[2:01:11] We haven't met with them either, or the TURRS 21 we meet next week.
[2:01:15] So, no one's having a Christmas meetings and
[2:01:17] here's meetings with you?
[2:01:18] No sir, no, okay, all right, for the new year.
[2:01:20] Mr. Chair, just making sure, yes, sir.
[2:01:23] But he else, Councilor Madison?
[2:01:26] I met with a, when sisters, Mr. City's board, very informative.
[2:01:35] I've got to always go, learn some of the things that they do with,
[2:01:45] I'm going to visit Brian College Station there, and they will be performing at the Stafford
[2:02:02] house in downtown Bryan and they're looking for a local church to also perform and also I think it
[2:02:12] was a week of first Thursday I met with the Casa Heights neighborhood association and I was
[2:02:18] able to get with staff on some of the information that they needed and I think keen for his quick
[2:02:24] to it and I think in third weekend on the 21st, we'll be having a call for
[2:02:33] Camp David who's associated me.
[2:02:35] I think I would just do it on board.
[2:02:37] That'll be after I make up a few more times.
[2:02:39] Okay.
[2:02:40] And those are all the means I attend.
[2:02:43] Okay.
[2:02:43] Any other committee means?
[2:02:45] Under report.
[2:02:45] American report.
[2:02:46] That's America.
[2:02:48] Most of my time has been on the CVV committee board and I think we heard a good
[2:02:54] presentation from them this afternoon.
[2:02:57] Yes, I just have one to report on there.
[2:03:00] The BTU had a meeting last night and board meeting we talked about really good news that
[2:03:08] we've had no safety related accidents this far, this fiscal year for the first three months.
[2:03:14] So that just tells you that the safety program that the BTU and Gary and staff and Keynes put in place is working.
[2:03:22] I mean, so safety has got to be a top priority.
[2:03:25] Also, the board approved contracts for the rotten poll replacement on the underground cable.
[2:03:32] One thing, the year-to-date financials are good.
[2:03:35] The weather is cooperated this far and BTU's retail sales are slightly higher than they had budgeted it.
[2:03:41] So, you know, they do a pretty good job of being conservative on their budgeting.
[2:03:44] And then, one thing, techs.contractors are starting to work and
[2:03:49] And I know a lot of people have probably talked about this, heard about it.
[2:03:53] The lighting project along Booneville Road is underway.
[2:03:57] New LED lighting will be installed along this major corridor.
[2:04:02] And one other note I think we should know, BTU will close its lobby and drive through.
[2:04:09] At 1.30 this Friday, BTU's billing system will undergo a major software upgrade for the long, over this long period.
[2:04:17] All customers payment related activity will have to wait until Tuesday morning so it just gives you a couple more days to pay your bill
[2:04:26] But that's all I have
[2:04:29] Okay, there's nothing else for the good of this workshop, then we are adjourned