[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.]

[0:01] I'm going to get up here so everybody can get required. Okay.
[0:14] All right. Good evening. We will call the order of the regular
[0:17] Heat City Council meeting, September 23, 2025. If you'd all rise for the invocation and
[0:23] pledge of allegiance, please. We do the prayer first. Okay. Dear Heavenly Father, we just recognize
[0:32] you as a sovereign, holy and just guy. And we are just grateful for everything that you're doing as
[0:39] this community, just want to pray for the Kirk family,
[0:43] a father that's just such a tragic, tragic,
[0:46] that some children lost their father.
[0:50] And just pray that you can soul that family,
[0:52] you lift them up.
[0:54] And as we continue, keep them in our thoughts.
[0:57] And father, I just pray that you give us wisdom tonight
[1:00] and discernment to make the right decisions.
[1:03] And above all things, I just pray that we talk
[1:07] and respond and act in a way that glorifies you, Lord.
[1:10] Thank you, Jesus, for dying on the cross,
[1:12] and your presence is in the name and prayer, amen.
[1:14] Amen.
[1:16] I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America
[1:21] and to the Republic for which it stands.
[1:24] One nation under God in individual liberty
[1:28] and justice from our own.
[1:30] Do we need to do the Texas flag?
[1:31] Yeah, here we go.
[1:33] I pledge allegiance to the flag.
[1:53] All right.
[1:56] All right.
[1:57] All right.
[1:57] All right.
[1:57] Thank you, Councilman.
[1:59] All right.
[2:00] At this time, we will go into agenda item number two.
[2:03] This is our public comment section.
[2:05] So, Mr. Alexander, do we have anyone signed up for public comment?
[2:09] Mr. Mayor, we have Ginny Seale here.
[2:14] For the hearings?
[2:15] Very well.
[2:16] All right.
[2:17] I'm sorry about that mayor does say for the public hearing.
[2:19] I apologize.
[2:20] It no works.
[2:21] Any others?
[2:23] No others, Mr. Alexander?
[2:24] No, sir.
[2:25] Very well, thank you.
[2:26] At this time, we are very honored and excited to have a wonderful
[2:31] proclamation this evening.
[2:34] So if we could, we'll have our Rockwell chapter
[2:37] daughter of the American Revolution Miss Margaret Davidson and Becky Brookhead if you come up first
[2:52] off. Thanks for being here. We're very excited to make this
[2:55] proclamation. Whereas September 17th of 2025 marks the 238th anniversary of the drafting of the Constitution of the United States of America by the
[3:06] constitutional convention. And whereas it is fitting in proper to a core official recognition to the magnificent document of the
[3:15] the Constitution of the United States and its memorable
[3:18] anniversary to the Patriotic Celebration,
[3:21] which will commemorate the occasion.
[3:23] And whereas the tradition of celebrating the Constitution
[3:27] was started by the daughters of American Revolution
[3:30] by petitioning Congress to set aside September 17th
[3:34] through the 23rd annually to be dedicated
[3:36] for the observance of the Constitution we need.
[3:40] And whereas public law 915 guarantees the issuing
[3:44] of a proclamation each year by the President of the United States of America to proclaim the week beginning September 17th
[3:51] and ending September 23rd of each year as constitution week and ask our citizens to reaffirm the ideals of the framers of the Constitution.
[4:01] Now, therefore, I, Jeremiah McClure, by virtue of the authority vested in me as Mayor of the City of Heath and the State of Texas,
[4:09] do hereby proclaim September 17th through September 23rd as constitution week in the city of Heath, Texas.
[4:16] Thank you, and thank you very much.
[4:30] Thank you very much.
[4:32] All right,
[4:43] we'll move into our next agenda item number four.
[4:45] This is our city manager and council comments, Mr. Alexander.
[4:49] Mr. Mayor, I have no comments.
[4:52] Okay. Council at this time, the floor is open.
[4:54] If you would have any comments, none at this time.
[4:58] I'm very well. We'll move in.
[5:00] Item two are agenda item number five. This is our consent agenda. I believe everyone has had time to review. Consent agenda is made up of 5.8, action regarding the minutes of the September 9th, 2025 regular meeting. So if there are no discussions, we will open the floor to entertain a motion. Mr. Mayor, I motion to accept the consent agenda. Motion by Councilman Dodson, do we have a second? I'll say it. We have a second by Councilman OMB. The motion moves. All those in favor say aye.
[5:29] Aye.
[5:30] Those opposed?
[5:31] As is unanimously.
[5:32] Thank you.
[5:32] Council.
[5:33] Moving into agenda item number six.
[5:35] This is our public hearing session.
[5:36] This is 6.A public hearing on ordinance number 250923b.
[5:43] Leving the ad valour and property tax rate for a year 2025, fiscal year 2025, 26.
[5:49] Mr. Alexander.
[5:56] Thank you, Mayor of Council members and members of the public.
[5:59] The item we have tonight as far as public hearing is concerned is on the public proposed
[6:04] tax rate, as you may recall, back on August 1st, the City Council called for this particular
[6:10] public hearing on August 12th.
[6:12] City Council proposed the voter approval rate as the preliminary tax rate.
[6:23] This particular hearing for the tax rate has been published in the Court of State Law on
[6:29] the city's website as well as the Rockwell County,
[6:32] Harold Banner, and the Royce City, Harold Banner.
[6:35] As it relates to the tax rate, as we go through this process,
[6:39] we look at a series of different tax rates to determine what
[6:44] the highest rate is, what the known new revenue rate is,
[6:47] and those sorts of things, and so just these two tables presented
[6:50] on the slides in front of you.
[6:53] We know the proposed tax rate is set at 27.565 cents per $100
[6:57] dollars of taxable assessed value, which is the approval rate.
[7:01] The known new revenue rate, as calculated by the Rockwell County Praser District, rather
[7:08] the tax assessment collector's office, is 27.201 cent per 100 dollars of taxable assessed
[7:15] value.
[7:17] The known new revenue maintenance and operation rate is calculated at 17.9752 and the debt
[7:24] rate is 8.7 cents.
[7:26] And so as you look at those rates, what's important about those is how do we go from the
[7:33] no-new revenue, the M&O rate to the voter approval rate and the table below shows you
[7:38] that calculation.
[7:39] So the no-new revenue rate, which is the rate, the M&O rate, that bring in the same amount
[7:44] of money that you received last year on the tax rolls that exist on the rolls for both
[7:48] years, is that's how you get to the no-new revenue rate.
[7:52] We're allowed to go up three and a half percent above that known new revenue rate.
[7:58] And we are also eligible to use any unused increment that we have that has not been picked up in prior years.
[8:05] And what unused increment is, is simply the difference between the rate the city council's approved and
[8:11] the voter approval rate that you could approve without having triggered an election.
[8:17] And any difference between those two that exist in the prior three years, you can use in this year.
[8:24] And so that amount equates to 0.02593.
[8:27] So we can take the no-new revenue rate, maintenance operation rate, add to that 3.5%, and then also the unused increment.
[8:36] And then once we have that number, we can add the debt rate which is not restricted by the limitations on what you can increase your rate by.
[8:44] And you end there by adding those components together at the voter approval rate, okay?
[8:51] And so tonight the public hearing is on the proposed tax rate which is the voter approval rate of 27.565.0 or 0.275.65 cents.
[9:03] On point out that good news, if you look back in history, our tax rate continues to decline.
[9:08] Now, albeit, we understand that tax will assess values go up, but good news is our tax rate
[9:15] continues to decline.
[9:17] We maintain a competitive tax rate for the city of Heath.
[9:20] When we look at other cities that we compare ourselves to, you can see on the far left,
[9:25] Heath, Highlight Living Green is comparably a relatively low property tax rate.
[9:31] Making up 17%, only 17% of the overall aggregate tax rate that tax pay will pay on their homes
[9:37] And so with that being said that's kind of a high level review of the tax proposed tax rate how we got there
[9:47] And then also the other rates we could have looked at and of course an only revenue rate
[9:51] We could have we could have chose that but because of the needs that we have within our community
[9:55] We are proposing that
[9:56] Tax rate of the voter approval rate which is again the highest rate you can have without
[10:05] Thank you, Mr. Alexander. At this time, we will allow a public hearing at 6.4. If there are any residents that would like to speak for or against, please feel free, Mr. Jim. Good to see you. If you'd like to take the lecture and state your name in your address, you're fine.
[10:32] Well, thank you, Council, for having this hearing. And I thank you for all your work and the staff.
[10:37] work.
[10:40] I had to I've certainly approved myself to tax rate. I think it's probably a
[10:46] little low actually but I do have some comments. I'm in a tier in 1971 and I
[10:55] asked myself today why I'm still here. Why do I still want to be here? What's
[10:59] important about my city? When I moved here, he had 550 people. I don't
[11:06] I'm probably back here before that, I don't know, but anyway.
[11:09] And we had 3,000 in the city of Rockwell, 7,000 in the county.
[11:13] You know, dirt roads out here, potholes.
[11:17] I was 24, I just got married, moved here from Newport Beach, looking for water.
[11:24] We bought a condo at the yacht club, and not only did we get a condo,
[11:28] it recognized the yacht club, which was a big deal to us.
[11:30] We've got the beautiful setting on the water and we've got a rest freak membership and I got a washer dryer
[11:37] At 24 that was just like you know, I was living my dream
[11:42] Now Rockwell County population it was estimated in 2024 of
[11:48] 137,000 people the 1970s vision here
[11:54] I'm gonna just kind of back up a little bit. There were a few people that had moved here right around the time
[11:58] I moved here that came from Dalips and
[12:01] and they wanted to make sure that we had a vision here.
[12:05] And I remember being more defined when somebody said
[12:07] we're gonna get rid of all the trailers.
[12:09] I'm like, what do you, you can come into a city
[12:11] and just say get rid of the trailers and, yeah.
[12:14] So they suggested everybody that they move the trailers
[12:17] and the trailers left and they wrote out a vision.
[12:21] And the vision was for large lots, green spaces,
[12:26] minimum retail specific to our needs, community input,
[12:29] that outdoor recreation parks and trails,
[12:32] family oriented town center and fire and police coverage.
[12:37] Most cities around here didn't have those kind of plans.
[12:40] And if you lived through this,
[12:41] you'd see what happened to Forney
[12:43] and a lot of the other cities that didn't happen here.
[12:49] We've had comprehensive plans throughout the years
[12:53] and people's stuck with it, which is great.
[12:56] And that's all we all wanted,
[12:57] that open space, the one at Commitments.
[13:00] And now the state itself is telling us
[13:03] that they're going to lower our taxes and they want affordable housing and I'm afraid
[13:09] that that's not who we are here and we're being hurt by that and we're going to be hurt
[13:14] really bad in the next few years if we don't talk about raising our taxes.
[13:22] They do allow
[13:23] for us to raise our taxes above these minimums but we have to have a vote and a lot of people
[13:28] don't realize that and I've actually lived through a vote here where one by seven votes
[13:33] It's for actually for tax, which now is supplying money to our economic development.
[13:42] None of us wants our taxes increased, but would you rather just let the over revision
[13:46] of low density, limit retail, safe community?
[13:51] If it's urgent that see the heath considers raising taxes next year, we need to be prepared
[13:56] and it's going to be more and more difficult as small cities try to control their existence.
[14:02] We can start a campaign now, a lot of citizens of Heath decide if they want to pay more taxes to continue to live in this incredible city, to decide that we are willing to pay for it.
[14:12] Without a plan, bring on the builders, the people, the cars, the roads, the traffic.
[14:17] Where do you want to live? And I think it's not only up to city council, it's up to citizens of Heath.
[14:22] And if we don't start a plan early and educate the community, it's like the water deal.
[14:28] So everybody's going, what? 25% Chris, if you want to have water and make sure you've got water, you have to pay for it.
[14:35] And if we want to keep our community the way it's been, we have to learn to pay for it.
[14:39] So that's just my thoughts on it.
[14:41] I just want to get it on the work.
[14:43] Thank you, ma'am.
[14:44] Appreciate it.
[14:49] Do we have any other residents that would like to speak for or against in this public hearing,
[14:55] none at this time?
[14:57] Public hearing will be closed at 6.44.
[15:00] We'll now move into agenda item 6.B. Hearing on ordinance number 250923C, adopting the master fee schedule for the fiscal year 2025, 2026, Mr. Alexander. Thank you, Mayor. Council members, members of the public. This, this public hearing is intended to give the public an opportunity to speak to the proposed fee schedule that you have in your packet this evening.
[15:28] The, as you may recall, the fee schedule, master fee schedule that we have here covers a wide array of different fees for services charged by the city, permit fees,
[15:40] part fees, water fees, solar waste rates, things of that nature.
[15:45] This evening, the fee schedule in front of you is only proposing an increase in the water and sewer rates that we have in the fee schedule.
[15:54] I want to take you through a few slides just to kind of remind everyone why we're proposing
[16:00] the increases in the rates, as well as show you the proposed impact of those rates on
[16:07] our water and sewer customers.
[16:09] You may recall, will then, which is the rate consultant hired by the City of Heath, to
[16:15] take a look at our rate structure and determine what level of rate adjustments we need going
[16:21] forward. They put together some of these slides, and I'm just, City Council seeing these,
[16:26] the public has seen these out on the website. They're certainly in the packet. And so some
[16:30] of these slides will look familiar, but I just think it's important to go back through
[16:33] them real quick just to kind of remind everybody how we got here.
[16:37] So, what we'll then determine in their research is that as far as water rates are concerned
[16:41] from the city of Rockwall and North Texansville water district, we're going to continue
[16:45] to see a relatively large increase in water cost over time at a rate on average, 7.9% a year.
[16:53] And so that in part is going to be driving rate increases going forward.
[16:59] As far as waste water increases from the charge by the North Texas Municipal Water District,
[17:04] you can see on average over the next 10 years, we're looking at 11.7% increase annually.
[17:11] I've highlighted this next year, 2026, we're seeing an increase of 26%.
[17:15] And if you track that for the next two years, you'll see there's even, I think the next year's 19% and then the year after that's 35%.
[17:22] So fairly large increases in our wastewater costs going forward.
[17:29] Now when the proposed budget was originally presented to the City Council, we had factored in a $72 million bond issue,
[17:36] certificate of obligation, to be used to fund the different components of the water bridge plan.
[17:46] Subsequent back up at that time,
[17:49] Wildehan had calculated that rates needed to cover that debt service along with other costs that were seeing on the water side was going to amount to about 25% a year for the first two years and then it drops off after that they have gone back and recalculate that number and identified an error in their formula and have put out new numbers if we were to stick to the proposed budget with the 72 million, excuse me.
[18:10] With the 72 million-dollar bond issue, and those would be 32% this year, 32% next year,
[18:18] 15% increase the year after that, and it drops the year for the water side.
[18:22] The wastewater rates haven't changed, and so nevertheless, we are seeing a fairly
[18:27] sizable adjustment for the next three years on wastewater side.
[18:36] Based on recent bids received on the Waterwell No. 1 project, you may recall that the bid for
[18:46] well number 1 came in at $5.5 million, which is quite a bit lower than what we had originally
[18:50] anticipated of around $8 million. And so we were able to take that difference and reduce the future
[18:56] bond issue by $10 million getting it down to $62 million bond issue. And so tonight we've laid out
[19:02] by a couple of options for council's consideration.
[19:04] Option one is lowering that bond issue to $62 million.
[19:08] Still keeping a single issue issued in 2026,
[19:13] having all the proceeds needed to fund the water bridge plan
[19:16] and all the different infrastructure components associated with it.
[19:19] And based on that, the water rate adjustments would start out
[19:22] at 27% for this upcoming fiscal year, 26% in the following year,
[19:28] 15% after that, and then it drops substantially after that
[19:31] for the following two years.
[19:32] You'll note that the wastewater adjustments
[19:34] are remaining the same.
[19:35] Again, these are being driven by the increases
[19:37] from the North Texan Municipal Water District,
[19:39] and so predominantly, they are passed through costs.
[19:44] So that is option one.
[19:45] Option two, let me back up real quick.
[19:49] So just so everybody can see the impact to the water bills
[19:52] with regards to option one.
[19:55] And so just draw your attention to a variety of scenarios here.
[19:58] Enjoy your-
[20:00] Your attention to the highlighted rows that show 15,000 gallons of water consumed and 10,000 gallons on the wastewater side. The average bill, associate with that, that particular consumer would go from $236.13 a month to $285.35 a month for next year.
[20:23] And then you can see how to fix the other types of users as well as commercial on this particular slide.
[20:30] Option 2 proposes to divide.
[20:32] the bond issue and the two issuances. First bond issue would occur next fiscal year for 40.5 million.
[20:39] Year after that, we would come back to you and propose a $21.5 billion bond issue in 2027.
[20:46] Again, both the proceeds from those bond issues or COs being used toward the water bridge plan.
[20:53] Taking that into consideration, the water rate analyst determined that by doing it in two phases,
[20:58] is we could lower the rate increase for this next fiscal year,
[21:03] 26 fiscal year, to 24% and then 24% in the following year,
[21:08] 16% year after that, and the drop-down substantially after that.
[21:12] Again, wastewater rates remain the same.
[21:17] This doesn't change the average bill, a whole lot, but as you can see that highlighted row,
[21:22] you can see the bill would be going from 236-13 to 281-99.
[21:29] So a small reduction, but I think what we're suggesting is that what you get out of dividing
[21:35] that bond issue into two issues is you're buying some time to one, see if rates will continue
[21:40] to go down and pick up a lower interest rate, but then also time the receipt of proceeds
[21:46] from bond issues is more closely with when you need the funding for construction.
[21:51] And so we're suggesting council consider option two as we go forward through the evening.
[21:59] As you look at comparing us to other cities within the area and our bill currently stacks up,
[22:04] which is the far left column, 236 dollar bill.
[22:08] You saw that on the slide earlier, you can kind of see where we stack up compared to other cities right now.
[22:14] Under option, I'll stick with option two at this point.
[22:16] Under option two, the average bill would be going to 281.99, so it does move up.
[22:22] But keep in mind that other cities in this group will also be looking at rate increases, not all of them.
[22:27] but some of them will be looking to rate increases as well,
[22:30] so many of these are likely to go up as well.
[22:37] But that may or I turn it back to you
[22:38] if you join any questions of me.
[22:45] For a public hearing at 652,
[22:47] there are any residents that would like to speak for against.
[22:50] Please feel free to take the lectern.
[22:59] I just want to make it really awkward, just keeps it.
[23:03] All right, very well.
[23:04] We will close public hearing at 652.
[23:09] Councilor, if there are no questions or comments
[23:12] on that public hearing item,
[23:14] we will move into the next agenda item.
[23:17] Very well.
[23:18] We'll move into agenda item number seven,
[23:22] that is items for individual consideration,
[23:24] 7.8, discussion in action.
[23:26] On case number FP202502, for a request by Tony DeGalia
[23:34] of burns surveying for the approval of a final plat
[23:37] being two tracks, totaling 5.372 acres of land
[23:42] located in the Edwards Teal Survey, abstract number 270, addressed as 7404-0-SouthFM-549-CDF-Heat, Mr. Consult.
[23:53] Sir, thank you mayor and good evening members of the council.
[23:56] This particular property, we have two tracks you can see here outlined in the red.
[24:02] The owners want to combine these tracks. When they bought the property, they actually thought it was one property.
[24:07] what they want to do is combine these two tracks, it'll be 5.3 acres and obviously
[24:13] with the purpose of constructing a new home, what you see here, this is the home that
[24:19] was constructed in 1975. Since this time, they had pulled a demolition permit, you see
[24:26] there's a swimming pool in the back as well. They demoed the home and the swimming pool
[24:31] and plan on expanding the footprint of the home when they build that in the near future.
[24:37] as far as the plan is concerned, this is the final
[24:43] plan that has been submitted and it's in your packet.
[24:46] It does meet all of the technical requirements of the
[24:48] subdivision ordinance.
[24:50] And the applicant is just requesting that you approve the
[24:53] plan. Of course, this being ministerial.
[24:56] Then the staff does recommend approval of the
[25:00] We took this to the planning and zoning commission on September 2nd, and they have forward a recommendation of approval as well. With that, the applicant has their representative here to answer any questions you may have, and I'm available for questions as well. Very well. Thank you, Mr. Gonzalez. At this time, Council, do you have any questions for staff? Mr. Mayor, Councilor Dodson. David, what's the setback on this property?
[25:26] The setback would be 40 feet and they are well beyond the 40 foot to setback.
[25:34] And at this stage have they proposed a preliminary outline with regards or elevations
[25:43] with regards to the property that they're looking to put up on that, or will that occur
[25:48] in the future?
[25:49] Yes, that will occur sometime in the future, we did not have not seen a building permit
[25:53] at this point.
[25:59] I have one more question. Under B, engineering, it said that the city does not allow reclamation of floodplain, nor does it allow structures in the floodplain or roadway or floodway or floodplain.
[26:11] Can you identify on that map where that is and tell us a little bit about that?
[26:18] Yes, absolutely. So this area here where you see hatched out, this is this is the floodway here and
[26:25] absolutely nothing can be built within the regulatory floodway. The remaining portion of this
[26:31] where it's kind of dotted that you can see is the 100-year floodplain and this is the 25-year,
[26:37] I believe 25-year floodplain here. So essentially most of this property is inside the floodplain and so
[26:44] So, their construction would be located in this area that's outside of the floodplain.
[26:50] Was there a building there that was torn down?
[26:54] The swimming pool, a portion of the swimming pool was in that, in this area right here with
[26:59] a 25 year, it was located about right there.
[27:04] So, they had a portion of the swimming pool that was located inside that floodplain.
[27:08] Okay.
[27:08] Okay.
[27:09] Thank you.
[27:09] There's
[27:12] plenty further questions for staff since
[27:17] for the applicant if
[27:21] there are none
[27:22] I think this was all I'll keep at this time the chair will over the floor to entertain the motion
[27:30] I'll make a motion to approve
[27:32] We have a motion to approve as stated by council no more men. I will second it
[27:40] Good. Thank you motion moves all those in favor say aye
[27:44] All right.
[27:45] Those opposed.
[27:46] That's the unanimous.
[27:49] Thank you.
[27:49] Council.
[27:50] Moving into 7.B.
[27:52] Discussion and action regarding the award of the bid for the Metavue Road Covert Replacement
[27:58] to four star excavating week in the amount of 780,915.
[28:05] Mr. Gray.
[28:06] Good evening, Mayor and council.
[28:08] So tonight we're bringing forward the bid for the Metavue Covert Replacement.
[28:13] I don't know if y'all, your guys are familiar with, here's a picture of what it looks like.
[28:17] You'll see the, this is the MetaView Colvert that's on the MetaView drive at Yankee Creek.
[28:21] It's just down from Terry Road intersection.
[28:24] And you can see the, the far left there, that Colvert is completely separated and fell down
[28:28] into the, into the creek there.
[28:30] We've had a lot of separation out of there and staff noticed on February 25th, this had
[28:37] occurred and you could actually see the pavement buckling when the heavier trucks and cars
[28:41] if we're going to cross it.
[28:42] So it was felt necessary to close it.
[28:45] At that point, it was visually designated emergency,
[28:48] but we found out we couldn't do that.
[28:49] So we had to take it out and bring it back
[28:52] before the council and did that.
[28:55] We took it and we coordinated with Sean Morgan Polk
[28:58] to initiate design services in June of this year.
[29:02] Design was completed in the project in Bidale
[29:03] until I third.
[29:05] And on July 29, we received 10 bids.
[29:10] The low-parent bidder was four-star and SPI is here tonight recommending the
[29:18] award of four-star estimating for 780,915 dollars.
[29:26] Councillor, do you have any questions for staff?
[29:30] Mr. Mayor?
[29:31] I got one question.
[29:32] Go ahead, John.
[29:34] Looking through the bid items and everything that was going through it, furnishing, my
[29:40] My question is that I've seen it had a floodgate in there, why are we leaving or are we going to raise this or why would we need the floodgate?
[29:49] If we're going to redo it, why wouldn't we re-raising that thing up?
[29:53] I'm going to bring the engineers up if you don't mind and let them in to answer design questions.
[29:56] Very well. Councilor Dodson, did you have a question for staff?
[30:00] I did. My apologies. Brian, you know, one time last year when we had this failure, you know, we thought that we were or would have to use the vast majority of the proceeds in the road repair budget for this expenditure. We did, yes sir. It looks like that has now changed and will be pulling from different fund sources in order to pay for this particular project. That is correct, sir. So then.
[30:29] And I would imagine then that those monies, that $900 or so thousand that we had in the road repair budget, will be then rolled over into this next year.
[30:40] That is my understanding, yes.
[30:41] That is total of $1.8 million.
[30:45] That is my understanding, yes sir.
[30:46] Right, which is more than we've spent on road repairs in a long, long, long time here in the east.
[30:53] Yes sir.
[30:54] Okay, good, I look forward to seeing the adjudication of that.
[30:56] Yes, sir. Great. Thanks.
[31:01] Councilman Mars. Yes.
[31:03] Good evening, Council. Mayor, a pleasure to be here tonight.
[31:07] Jeremy White with a Schumberg and Polk.
[31:09] I'm to answer your question, Councilman.
[31:12] We had coordinated with staff originally during the scoping of this project at looking at raising the road.
[31:18] We did an initial estimate to determine what we thought that
[31:22] That raising would be as far as limits and amount of upgrade that be required.
[31:29] We presented that cost forward to staff.
[31:32] I can't remember it off the top of my head, but it was substantially more expensive.
[31:37] And due to the cost of that, we reduced the scope back down to just leave the road at its current elevation.
[31:44] But to expand the boxes underneath it as much as possible.
[31:48] there's you know 350 2 inch culverts there currently but we're maximizing that
[31:54] space as much without raising the roads so we're putting in two 8x8 reinforced
[31:59] concrete box culverts in there allowing more water to go under the road before
[32:05] it overtops so that's why those floodgates are still in there so that current flood
[32:10] plane is still that same limit but we're just going to stick floodgates on
[32:13] either side just so staff can utilize them when they feel necessary.
[32:18] You're welcome. Very good. Any further questions?
[32:24] Very well.
[32:25] Thank you. Yes, sir. I feel like we've talked about this bridge for way too long.
[32:31] So I am happy to see us here tonight talking about getting some actions done.
[32:36] So thank you, staff, for your hard work on working on this.
[32:40] And thank you, council. I know we've addressed this a few times.
[32:43] So, very good at this time, the chair will open the floor to entertain a motion.
[32:50] I'll make a motion.
[32:53] I'll make a motion that we award the bid for the MetaVue Road call the replacement to
[32:58] force our excavating e can the amount of $780,000 to $915.
[33:02] Very well.
[33:03] The motion on the floor has stated.
[33:05] Do we have a second?
[33:06] I second the motion.
[33:07] One five for a second.
[33:08] Councilor Doddson, I guess you won that.
[33:12] the motion moves. All those in favor say aye aye those opposed, passes unanimously.
[33:20] Moving
[33:20] into agenda item 7.C discussion in action regarding ordinance number 2509238. Approving and
[33:28] adopting the City of Heath Annual Budget Municipal Plan of Services for the fiscal year 2025-26.
[33:35] Beginning October 1st, 2025 and ending September 30th, 2026, Mr. Alexander.
[33:41] Thank you, Mr. Mayor, councilmembers, members of the public, the item that you have in front
[33:47] of you has been worked on for the last several months. A lot of hard work has gone into
[33:53] it. I want to express my appreciation for all of the City Council's efforts and guidance
[33:58] through this process. City staff has done a wonderful job putting this budget together and getting
[34:03] to a point to where hopefully all of your questions have been answered. If not, we're
[34:07] We're here to answer those remaining questions tonight, but it's been a long process and
[34:12] we're excited to be here to get this budget approved and move on to the next fiscal year.
[34:18] Before you go on, I would like to make it now
[34:26] fun of all of you to put in countless hours and hours and hours and workshops.
[34:32] I just want to say a special thanks for us being here tonight and then also seeing you burn the candle on both ends and being here on the weekends and working diligently on that.
[34:41] Thanks to JR's, he's not here tonight, but thank you to you and your staff and your dedication in this city.
[34:47] No question about a mayor's been a team effort, that's for sure.
[34:52] A few slides to go through before answering questions council that you may have.
[34:56] Just real quick, a recap, as you may recall.
[35:00] The budget process started back March of this year. I have a couple of work sessions in March, one in March, one in June. On August 1, the proposed budget was presented to city council. I'm sorry, excuse me on August 1, the proposed budget was presented to city council on August 11th, the city council voted to set the preliminary tax rate, scheduled public hearings on September 9th. We held a public hearing on the proposed budget and then tonight we held our public hearing on the tax rate and are moving forward with
[35:29] a few action items of the City Council.
[35:32] One being the adoption of an ordinance approving the budget and an adoption or action on an ordinance
[35:40] authorizing the 2025 property tax rate and then lastly ratifying the adoption of the budget.
[35:46] And then the last item adoption of the fee schedule.
[35:52] The proposed budget that you have in front of you and that's what the budget that's been presented on the city's website
[35:58] That was the original proposed budget, which, as you recall, included, and as I mentioned earlier, a 72 million dollar bond issue,
[36:06] certificates of obligation to fund various components and infrastructure improvements related to the water bridge plan.
[36:14] Total beginning fund balance presented a $67.7 million total expenditures, $118 million, I'm sorry, total revenues, $118 million total expenditures,
[36:23] about $106 million ending with fund balance of $80 million, $200,000.
[36:33] So again, the proposed budget included $72 million of certificates of obligation.
[36:38] That was intended to fund six potable water wells, 1.5 million gallon elevated storage tank,
[36:47] a three million gallon ground storage tank that would be shared with rock wall,
[36:50] and then a three million gallon ground storage tank for our own uses.
[36:54] As I mentioned earlier, we did, we came to the conclusion that since our first bid for
[37:00] the water well number one came out quite a bit lower than what was originally anticipated.
[37:04] We felt we could lower this bond issue down, which started the process of taking a look
[37:08] at a smaller bond issue, and then also possibly phasing those dead issue.
[37:14] And so again, just like on the fee schedule, you have two options presented this evening.
[37:18] The first option sticks with a single issue, as I mentioned earlier, of $62 million.
[37:25] It still covers all the components of the water bridge plan.
[37:29] The change in the financial impact is it reduces overall revenues to $113.6 million.
[37:36] It reduces overall expenditures to $111 million.
[37:41] And it reduces our ending fund balance to $64.8 million.
[37:44] because we're bringing less proceeds in from the bond issue.
[37:49] And I mentioned the different projects that make up the water bridge plan.
[37:55] Option two splits the bond issue into two phases.
[37:59] The first phase is being $40.5 million, which would cover the four potable water wells.
[38:04] The first one that was recently awarded and then wells two through four.
[38:10] the 1.5 million gallon elevated storage tank currently under design and then the
[38:16] 3 million gallon ground storage tank that would be shared with Rockwall which
[38:19] is not currently under design. Phase 2 would be a bond issue to 21.5 million
[38:25] occurring in fiscal year 27 would cover the remaining two potable water wells five
[38:29] and six and then the 3 million gallon ground storage tank that's currently
[38:33] under design by the city. The resulting financial impact would reduce
[38:39] revenues to $91.7 million total appropriations to $110.5 million and then an ending fund
[38:45] balance of $43.4 million. And the details associated with these numbers and the appropriate
[38:50] ordinances are laid out in your packet and tonight we'll ask you to choose either option
[38:57] one or two or perhaps you might have a different option but the options we put forward for
[39:01] you this evening are the options one and two.
[39:05] In order to adopt the budget we would need
[39:07] And a motion from you provided some wording for the motion, but in that motion would
[39:15] ask that you would choose the option that the City Council would like to go with.
[39:20] So I say there's two options.
[39:22] Of course, you could always adopt the proposed budget as it's on the table, right?
[39:26] But that's not what we're recommending.
[39:29] Then it gets down to just options one or two, or if you have some other alternative changes
[39:34] you'd like to make the proposed budget, you can also do that as well.
[39:36] So with that, we're recommending option two, but we're here answering questions and that you may have.
[39:43] Very well. Thank you, Mr. Alexander. At the time, Council, the floor is open. If you have any questions for staff. Councilor Dodson.
[39:53] Thanks, Steve, very much. You know, we reviewed some of this at the water committee meeting, and we'll talk about.
[40:00] We'll talk about that in a bit greater detail later on from all the puts and takes that these things have. Putting your financial head on for a second, looking at the materiality of a rate reduction for a future bond issuance. What might that savings or what could that savings look like from a future state perspective on what is it a 21.5 or a 22 million dollar bond?
[40:25] I was always told never do math in a meeting, but as you might imagine, the rate of interest
[40:41] rate that we have factored into the bond issue that's presented tonight is sitting at 4.6%.
[40:46] Should rates continue to decline, which is somewhat anticipated, we could be seeing a 4% rate
[40:52] Which could have a fairly material impact and the overall interest over a 25-year bond, right?
[40:58] I don't have a number for you, and I don't have a heuristic to use in order to calculate that off the top of my line.
[41:03] I'm willing to do for a directional act here to see another empirical accuracy.
[41:06] So I think what we've styled in this proposed budget is to not issue these bonds until January or February.
[41:15] And I think that that gives time to let some of those interest rates continue to come down,
[41:21] which ultimately will be to the benefit of future rate, utility rate adjustments.
[41:27] Right. So we saw the schedule of what will then, our consultants have calculated every year.
[41:33] And so anything that we can do to bring that down, put downward pressure on that,
[41:37] we want to focus on doing it. And if delaying the debt issue a little bit helps that,
[41:41] I think it's worked the way.
[41:44] Yeah, particularly I think when you consider the known quantities about Wells 1-4,
[41:50] and the unknown quantities about Wells 5 and 6, it provides time for those items to be sorted out
[41:59] from a diligence and from a discovery standpoint. Right, I mean everything comes into
[42:03] sharper focus as you get more information, right? And so as we approach issuing the debt,
[42:09] you know, refining our probable cost estimates, hopefully gaining a better interest rate,
[42:14] maybe we can help manage some of these future rate increases a little more tightly.
[42:18] Great. Thanks Steve, very much.
[42:20] Yep, very, very well for the questions for...
[42:28] Yeah, I would concur. I mean, I think that we've had a lot of great debate
[42:34] that this council has put a lot of time and effort into really
[42:38] making sure that we're focused on these legacy investments.
[42:44] I know that we have a finance board that's focused on that as well.
[42:48] There's been a great deal of feedback.
[42:50] back. I know that there's a lot of, you know, to our residents, comments tonight, you
[42:57] know, that we've got a lot of ground to make up and we're working hard to figure that
[43:01] out. We also talked in our last budget review meeting. We talked about, hey, look, we've
[43:08] got some rising concerns with how we purchase our water now. We've seen a massive rate increase
[43:17] on this center center line that's come through with North Texas and Minnesota's water district, right?
[43:22] So once we start looking at these rate increases over time, we are in the water business
[43:28] because we essentially buy water wholesale from Rockwell and resell it.
[43:34] So being creative and creating this resource as well I think is a highly vetted conversation
[43:42] that's happened over many, many months with a lot of different people.
[43:46] And then obviously looking at our storage capacities and increasing those
[43:51] storage capacities, I do think it is a smart move looking at this from a
[43:56] break it into two phases, one of you. I didn't tell you I wasn't, I wasn't sitting
[44:02] at that, you know, probably six months ago, but looking at, you know, what, what's
[44:06] the bond market doing, listening to a lot of sound lines and thinking through
[44:10] these things. So I think it's a great recommendation that you've made this evening,
[44:14] So, if there are no further questions or discussion, council.
[44:21] All right, very well.
[44:21] Thank you, Mr. Alexander.
[44:23] At this time, the chair will open the floor to entertain a motion.
[44:26] I'll make a motion.
[44:28] That motion that we adopt ordinance 250923A, approving the fiscal year 202526 budget, option two.
[44:37] Okay.
[44:38] We have a motion on the floor to approve ordinance number 250923A.
[44:45] in observing option two. Do we have a second?
[44:50] I'll second.
[44:50] Mr. Mayor?
[44:51] We have a second by Councilman Myers.
[44:53] The motion moves. All of those in favor say aye.
[44:56] Aye.
[44:58] Those opposed?
[44:59] Dane.
[45:02] It does pass. Thank you, council. Moving into agenda item 7.D. Discussion and action regarding ordinance number 250923B. Leving the ad warm property tax rate for tax year 2025, fiscal year 2025, 2026. Mr. Alexander.
[45:24] Thank you, Mayor. City council members, members of the public. So the order of things is budget first, tax rate second, and then we have one.
[45:39] Okay, if we could just go back and do a record vote on the budget, I apologize.
[45:45] So we're playing a little over talking about it on all three questions.
[45:51] Sure.
[45:53] Very well.
[45:55] Okay, I've got the list here so we'll leave it to Norm on the straightness out.
[46:00] They're not in the order that I normally go because it's already written down on this
[46:04] resolution or ordinance so let's start with Mayor McCleur four or against four.
[46:11] Mayor Pro Temp, Scott Dodson, four.
[46:15] Council Member City Horn, four.
[46:18] Council Member Johnny Myers, four.
[46:21] Council Member Ryan Mormons, four.
[46:24] Council Member Michelle Thurgood, four.
[46:27] and council member Mitch Olby.
[46:30] For Mr.
[46:38] Alexander.
[46:39] We all legal now.
[46:40] We're all good to go to the tax rate.
[46:42] Okay, as things go, budget first, tax rate second,
[46:45] and then we have one other item to go after that
[46:47] as far as the budget's concerned,
[46:49] or the tax rate's concerned.
[46:52] Talk about this a little bit during the public hearing.
[46:57] No new revenue rate is sitting at a style differently
[47:02] on the screen, but I read it at 17.9752 cents, we've got a 3.5% adder to that to get closer
[47:11] to the voter approval rate, and then we have an unused increment of 0.2593 cents, and
[47:18] then we have our debt rate of 8.7014 cents, a total voter approval rate of 27.565 cents.
[47:25] And so we talked about this at length, I'll answer any questions you might have with the
[47:30] In regards to the proposed tax rate that's presented tonight, but we're asking for your favorable consideration of the proposed tax rate, which is also the voter approval rate.
[47:38] The proposed motion is on the screen for you to consider.
[47:41] All right, very well.
[47:42] Council, this time the floor is open.
[47:46] If you have any questions for staff,
[47:51] or if there are no questions, the chair will open the floor to entertain a motion.
[47:57] I'll make a motion.
[47:58] I move that the property tax rate be increased to the adoption of the tax rate of 0.275650 dollars per $100 of taxable valuation which is effectively a 4.94% increase in the tax rate.
[48:12] Very well. We have a motion on the floor. Do we have a second?
[48:18] I'll second.
[48:19] I'm going to say I'm by Councilman Worm.
[48:22] Do we have any further discussion items before I move this to look?
[48:28] One thing I'd like to say is whenever we say that there's 4.94% increase in attack
[48:34] trade, we do want to clarify that.
[48:38] Thank you, Mayor.
[48:39] I was just thinking of the same thing.
[48:40] Would you like to give some clarity?
[48:42] Yes, sir.
[48:42] Thank you, Mayor.
[48:43] I have failed to kind of clarify why we do this this way.
[48:49] So the state law views any increase in tax revenue as a tax increase.
[48:54] The rate, as we have mentioned numerous times, is going down.
[48:59] The rate last year was right at 20, in fact, if you look at the front of the budget,
[49:03] the rate last year was 29 cents, right at 29 cents.
[49:07] It is going down to 27.565, but I'm going to clarify 29.0311 cents going down to 27.565.
[49:16] five, however, because we've had increase in taxable
[49:20] assess values, we're generating more tax revenue.
[49:24] And as a result, the state requires that we announce
[49:27] that that is a tax increase, and if an effective increase
[49:32] in the tax rate, okay?
[49:34] And so that's why the motion, I apologize again,
[49:36] but that is why the motion is styled the way it is
[49:38] and that isn't according to the state law.
[49:39] Very good.
[49:40] Thank you for that.
[49:41] Thank you, Mayor.
[49:42] It was great to go there.
[49:43] I was moving too fast, I apologize.
[49:45] Does.
[49:46] All right, those buttons.
[49:48] The wind is right.
[49:50] The motor part.
[49:54] All right.
[49:57] Record mode.
[49:58] Record mode.
[49:59] Okay.
[50:00] Mayor Jeremiah McClure. In favor. Four, or yes, four. I'm four. Mayor pro Jim Scott Dodson. Four. Councilmember
[50:09] Cindy Horn. Four. Councilmember Johnny Myers. Four. Councilmember Ryan Warman. Four. Councilmember
[50:17] Michelle Thurgood. Four. And Councilmember Mitch Ombi. Four.
[50:29] We will now move into agenda item 7.e.
[50:32] Discussion and action regarding resolution number 250923a, ratifying the property tax increase
[50:39] reflected in the fiscal year 2025-2026 budget, Mr. Alexander.
[50:44] Thank you, Mr. Mayor, council members, members of the public and good government fashion.
[50:48] We'd like to do things more than once and so what this item is doing is essentially making sure that
[50:54] you knew what you just did and that you acknowledge it out loud and so the state law requires that when the
[51:03] proposed tax rate exceeds the no new revenue rate, maintenance operation rate that is, then we have to have you ratify the tax increase.
[51:13] And so that's all this item is, there is a resolution attached in your packet declaring that you're ratifying the tax rate that you just approved and the tax increase associated with it.
[51:22] Council,
[51:25] the floor is open, if you have any questions or comments for staff.
[51:30] If there are none at this time, the chair will open the floor to entertain a motion.
[51:36] I'll make a motion, Mr. Mayor.
[51:38] Make a motion.
[51:39] We adopt resolution 250-923-A, ratifying the property tax increase reflected in the fiscal
[51:44] year 2025-26 budget, acknowledging that the budget will raise more revenue from property
[51:50] taxes in the previous fiscal year.
[51:52] Second.
[51:56] We have a second.
[51:57] All right.
[51:59] Councilman Dodson.
[52:02] I have no longer.
[52:04] Go record.
[52:05] Okay.
[52:06] Four.
[52:06] Or against.
[52:07] Mayor McClure.
[52:08] In favor.
[52:10] Mayor Pro Tem Scott Dodson.
[52:13] Four.
[52:13] Councilmember Cindy Horn.
[52:15] Four.
[52:16] Councilmember Johnnie Myers.
[52:17] Four.
[52:18] Councilmember Ryan Mormon.
[52:19] Four.
[52:20] Councilmember Michelle Thurgood.
[52:23] Four.
[52:24] Councilmember Mitchell.
[52:25] Four.
[52:25] Moving
[52:31] into agenda item 7.F, discussion in actual regarding ordinance number 259-2-3-C, adopting the master fee schedule for fiscal year 2025-2026, Mr. Outlander.
[52:43] Thank you, mayors and council members, members of the public. As we talked about during the public hearing, we have a fee schedule on the table for approval tonight for your consideration for approval tonight.
[52:52] As we mentioned earlier, the rate adjustments for the water rates have been divided into two options, option one, being the higher rates proposed and option two,
[53:06] allowing for the splitting of the bond issue within the budget over a two fiscal year period as opposed to one and the waste water rates as they have been presented throughout the process.
[53:14] So we're asking for your favourable consideration of the fee schedule that's in your packet tonight, adjusting rates for 2026 and for
[53:22] the note that Council is not approving the rates for 27, 28, 29, or 30, only for 2026 and the other rates are just proposed as what is anticipated going forward after fiscal year 26.
[53:34] Happy to answer any questions that you might have.
[53:36] very well. Council at this time for any discussion or questions for staff.
[53:44] Mr. Mayor, I just think that you know this particular proposal allows us to start solving
[53:52] for the major water issues that we've faced as a community. And it's not only a solution
[53:59] here for the short term, it's a solution for the long term benefit of all he citizens.
[54:06] It solves for supply, it solves for storage, and it solves to some degree for infrastructure
[54:14] although there will be other discussion about that.
[54:17] And while no one wants to pay for the solution, this certainly does it.
[54:23] And it does it in, you know, one fell swoop or if you split the bond in two tranches as
[54:31] it were as well.
[54:33] And really, the only thing that we have that we can manage are the water rates because
[54:39] the sewer rates are really put upon us by Rockwall.
[54:43] And that's just the pastor Steve, like you had mentioned before.
[54:46] No, Texas.
[54:47] Yes, so sort of North Texas, yes sir, absolutely.
[54:50] So thank you for putting on all of the work on this and all of the machinations with all
[54:55] the different, you know, numeric valuations and everything else that you all did.
[55:00] This is really great work. I appreciate it. Again, team effort with city council, as well as city staff. Everybody pulled together to put all this together and it's been a lot of work. Thanks. No further comments, Mayor? Thank you, Councilor Dodson. Any further discussions or questions with Councilor? None at this time. The chair will over the floor to entertain a motion.
[55:24] I'll make a motion, Mr. Mayor. Make a motion. We adopt ordinance number two, five, zero, nine, two, three, C, adopting the master fee schedule.
[55:32] for fiscal year 2025-26 option two.
[55:36] Very well. Do we have a second?
[55:38] Second.
[55:39] Second, my councilman Dodson will
[55:44] move to a record vote.
[55:46] Nope.
[55:47] Nope.
[55:48] Not needed on this one.
[55:49] I got an exception.
[55:51] How was someone?
[55:52] You were right.
[55:53] No.
[55:54] Unless you want to join these record votes?
[55:57] Can you see all the time?
[55:58] You see how trainable we are up here in Normandy?
[56:03] All of us are as fancy as our county judge. He's got a real cool technology. He gets to sit on a big screen.
[56:10] We have a pleasure of having him here this evening. So we will move into the motion moving. All those in favor say on.
[56:16] Hi.
[56:17] Those boasts.
[56:18] Passes unanimously.
[56:20] Thank you.
[56:21] All right.
[56:26] All right. We will now move into agenda item 7.g. Discussion and action regarding ordinance number 250923D.
[56:32] 9-2-3-D, amending the city of Heath, fiscal year 2024, 2025, and your budget, Mr. Alexander.
[56:40] I thought I was done, I forgot about this.
[56:43] So, the item that you have in front of you this evening is an amendment to the current year budget.
[56:51] Fiscal year 24-25, and as you may recall it the last council meeting,
[56:55] city council was made aware of the need to amend the budget for the utility reserve fund.
[57:01] to address the water well number one project of $5.5 million.
[57:06] Some of which, some of this cost of which will be reimbursed
[57:09] through the certificates obligation.
[57:11] And I'll mention now that either the next council meeting
[57:14] or the council meeting after that will be bringing a resolution
[57:18] to you for the intent to issue COs
[57:22] and allow some of these costs to be reimbursed to the city
[57:25] through the proceeds of those bonds.
[57:27] The other amendment that's being requested this evening, we discussed that the last council
[57:33] meeting is related to flock cameras for the place department to expand the number of
[57:39] cameras that we have in the city with regards to flock cameras.
[57:42] This would be an amendment to the general fund, specifically the DPS division.
[57:48] Overall the budget amendment to increase in appropriations is calculated at $5,563,000.
[57:55] These funds will be paid for through available fund balance within the general fund and the utility reserve fund.
[58:03] As it relates to the slot cameras, just the note on the screen that there is an ongoing operating cost associated with the slot cameras being presented tonight, and this will start.
[58:16] This amount will kick off in fiscal year 2627 at an amount of 62,000 per year.
[58:20] So it's not going to affect us in 2526 because that's what the 65,400 is in the cover.
[58:26] Okay.
[58:27] Very well.
[58:28] Thank you, Mr. Alexander.
[58:31] I don't need to go through the importance of these items, but I will say for anyone that hasn't heard us talk about.
[58:38] The flawed cameras and increasing our availability of being able to see the license plates of individuals that are coming and going.
[58:48] It is important for us to be able to become the number one safe city right now with a seven
[58:54] safe city.
[58:55] We're going to do everything in our power to become the number one safe city within the
[58:59] state of Texas.
[59:00] And so I'm very excited to see that line item as well as we are getting into the water business
[59:06] even more with water wells, we're very excited about seeing well one.
[59:11] So I'm very happy to see these items come forth tonight.
[59:15] At this time, if there are no questions, the chair will open the floor to entertain a motion.
[59:22] Mr. Mayor, I move that we approve ordinance number 250923D, amending the city of Heath,
[59:29] fiscal year 2024, 2025 annual budget, with the amounts of $65,400 for the flock, safety,
[59:40] the license plate recognition cameras and the construction of water well number one per
[59:45] water bridge plan for 5,497,777 dollars funded through the utility capital reserve account.
[59:56] Very well.
[59:57] We have a motion on the floor.
[59:58] Do we have a second?
[59:59] Second.
[1:00:02] We're the second by councilwoman horn. You win tonight.
[1:00:11] So the motion moves all those
[1:00:12] who have ever say aye, aye, those opposed, nay,
[1:00:23] we will now move into agenda item seven
[1:00:27] dot h, discussion and update on the Hubbard Drive project, the water bridge plan, and the
[1:00:32] I don't know if you can tell it's an apartment, Mr. Cree.
[1:00:40] Hello again, Mayor and Councilman.
[1:00:45] There it is.
[1:00:45] I'm gonna say, well, I forgot to type in there.
[1:00:49] So yeah, this is a project update.
[1:00:50] This would be similar to the update I brought you
[1:00:53] last month for these three projects.
[1:00:56] The first one of those is Hubbard Drive.
[1:01:00] Currently, it's still not moving.
[1:01:04] It's just for phase four from Michael Drive to 740.
[1:01:07] We are still waiting on getting final design reviewed and completed so we can get that out of the bid.
[1:01:14] Anticipated date to get that out of the bid is this October.
[1:01:20] That's where that's at.
[1:01:22] I can do any questions. I don't have any further update on the paper.
[1:01:25] Yeah, I think if we could elaborate right on our expected timelines, right?
[1:01:31] We are hoping to start seeing activity and action by the end before the end of the year.
[1:01:37] Yeah, we're expected to send that out to bid in October.
[1:01:39] That's right.
[1:01:42] Yeah, it could kick off before January.
[1:01:46] Okay.
[1:01:47] That is an expectation.
[1:01:49] Okay, very well.
[1:01:50] It happens with the bid that's unexpected.
[1:01:52] You know, I can't get it right.
[1:01:53] I just want to assess some good expectations because our residents have been waiting on hover drive since Jenny moved here.
[1:02:03] 1971. I drove it today and I was like, my goodness, this road needs repair. So again,
[1:02:11] whatever we do, make sure that we're expediting. Yes sir. Hey Brian, what do you think the
[1:02:17] biggest hold up has been? I've sent some frustration when you kick this off. You know, I think a lot
[1:02:23] of people are frustrated about this road. Where's the hold up in terms of getting this thing
[1:02:27] and cleared to move to the construction phase?
[1:02:31] Well, stay in true to this nature.
[1:02:34] Hubbard continues to have changes that jump on us
[1:02:37] as we move down the line.
[1:02:39] Driveway changes, water line changes.
[1:02:43] And those changes have caused us to go back to the design board,
[1:02:46] go back to the design board.
[1:02:48] And we again have some changes that we
[1:02:51] had to submit to our comments due to growth
[1:02:56] and some things going on along Hubbard that has caused that to go back.
[1:03:01] Right, some properties that didn't exist.
[1:03:04] Correct.
[1:03:04] I have now been identified that they do now exist.
[1:03:08] So we're having to change some of the
[1:03:12] forgotten designs to.
[1:03:15] You're correct.
[1:03:16] The storm drain design, elevation design, driveway approaches, things of that nature.
[1:03:21] Culture.
[1:03:21] to. Okay. Not to mention just historically, right? You can speak to this, I guess I'll
[1:03:26] jump in. But, you know, once they got into some of the planning, we had realized that
[1:03:34] there's actually water lines that are running through that area. There were. So we, part
[1:03:40] of the developer agreement was they installed an 18-inch water line on what if you're
[1:03:44] growing down Hubbard this way, I'd be the east side of the road to your left. During
[1:03:50] that designed, they did not tie the waterline into any roads that were on the west side
[1:03:54] of the road. They remained on all 40 lake lines, had had harvested and function, things
[1:04:00] of that nature. That wasn't picked up until design had already been approved and the project
[1:04:04] could bid out through the PD, the developer's agreement. So they had to go back and redesign
[1:04:12] that rather than cause the road to be built and then cut the road, your brand new road,
[1:04:16] and install all those crossings and water lines.
[1:04:19] It was also noted that when they arrived at a couple
[1:04:23] of the intersections, the elevations were wrong
[1:04:25] for the stormwater drainage.
[1:04:27] It knows how to be corrected.
[1:04:32] So a lot of problems with how to drive,
[1:04:34] but we're getting there.
[1:04:35] It's been a monster.
[1:04:36] In fact, we're hoping, I'm going to throw it out there,
[1:04:39] that we're hoping that over this next year,
[1:04:41] it will be concluded in 2026, correct?
[1:04:46] The request in this bid.
[1:04:48] You see, I'm putting up a lot of time on that.
[1:04:49] It's for a...
[1:04:50] I'm really...
[1:04:50] The requesting this be it is for a...
[1:04:52] You drive off of overdrive.
[1:04:53] I'm trying for you guys at home.
[1:04:55] Absolutely.
[1:04:56] It's for a different approach to how we do this.
[1:05:00] The previous approach had much more what we call hand pouring. We're requiring a lay down machine for this one, so we anticipate it should move faster.
[1:05:11] That was the space. This may or we are going to do all we can. All we can pass our mind gone. I just want to turn it. All we can to meet that commitment.
[1:05:22] We keep that lay down machine for Terry drive to. I'm sure they would for a press. Yeah. And this slide here demonstrates the cost. It's the same
[1:05:33] one you've seen for, and I believe this is fully funded, we anticipate that, that's made
[1:05:40] a project cost.
[1:05:43] The next one is the bridge plan. I'm not going to beat this one to death,
[1:05:47] and because we have a committee update that I think is going to hit some of these same
[1:05:50] points. I'll just hit the high notes and run right through it, so I don't step on any
[1:05:55] toes on this one. Obviously, you know, our current conditions, like we've always said, is
[1:06:00] the city of Rockwall's class city of Heath with water through a pump station just located
[1:06:03] it's at 30 in Rockwall. So, they're behind shenanigans if everybody ever wants to see those tanks.
[1:06:08] We're currently operating from memory and understanding, working toward a contract and currently at
[1:06:12] 6.5 million gallons per day. One note I'd like to put in here is it barring something crazy,
[1:06:21] but technically the summer is over. We have sustained this summer without going to any further stages of
[1:06:26] restrictions. Is your microphone on that one as well? It is on. Yeah, well done, friend. Well done.
[1:06:32] Thank
[1:06:36] you residents. Yes, absolutely. That's who did it. And thank you Rockwell.
[1:06:41] Absolutely.
[1:06:44] The town center well, Parkwell number one, we awarded it to see Miller Drilling.
[1:06:49] And notice this preceed is expected this October. We actually have a pre preliminary meeting
[1:06:56] October 6th, where we're going to sit down, we're going to work on schedules, coordinate with
[1:07:00] and Wilkson to see more for our park so we can start sectioning out that area to hopefully
[1:07:06] get them what they need over there.
[1:07:10] We also have awarded the design to the 1.5 elevated tank on governors.
[1:07:17] They have already started their Sue work over there.
[1:07:19] In fact, if we don't get a lot of rain tomorrow, there'll be drilling some pretty deep pears
[1:07:24] in that area, not drilling, just sampling, pretty deep samples, soil samples because they've
[1:07:29] already started all their underground geotechnical work.
[1:07:32] Same goes for the pump station.
[1:07:33] We've already had to take down the back fence.
[1:07:36] And we put it back up, but it's kind of construction
[1:07:39] you need to look at now, as work has begun up there as well.
[1:07:44] And that's the 3 million ground and storage tank.
[1:07:46] It's at our pump station, like I said.
[1:07:47] It's over the bus to the Nantiganst, on Townsend Boulevard.
[1:07:49] It's right next to Rockwall's pump station.
[1:07:52] If you're ever driving down out 30 and you actually
[1:07:54] are going towards Dallas, if you look off to the left in that area,
[1:07:57] you'll see a bunch of tanks, a couple of them are rock walls and the one that's
[1:08:03] further up to your west would be the city of Heath Tank. And there's going to be
[1:08:07] one just like it put behind it.
[1:08:12] We do have the scope in house for what are
[1:08:15] well two, three, four for design. It's currently under staff review and we'll be
[1:08:20] bringing that to you guys very shortly.
[1:08:25] And that's all I had on the bridge plan.
[1:08:29] Thank you, sir.
[1:08:33] Town center park. I don't want to throw them one of the
[1:08:36] bus, both of our design engineer architects are here tonight, so if y'all want an opportunity
[1:08:40] to pepper them with questions, I know Emily's dying to come up here and talk about it.
[1:08:48] This is the aerial from August. I don't know how much you can get out of that, but I rode
[1:08:54] with Joel today, and what I can tell you is the dry creek area. They're working, I'm
[1:09:04] this thing. Oh, there it is. The dry creek area, they're pouring, they're pouring the trail,
[1:09:08] spring is down here. This looks substantially cut. I don't think it's the final gray, but you can
[1:09:13] actually see it's formed. It looks like it looks like the drainage area. They have a sidewalk coming
[1:09:18] down it. It's starting to look like it should. This right here has no grass on it, but it looks like
[1:09:24] a field. It's a big open area. It's probably not fine-graded yet, but it's rough graded. It's got
[1:09:29] the little crown on it. It looks pretty good. We're starting to see what could be a field. The ball
[1:09:34] fields here so you'd see both these dugouts have been poured here. You can see the little
[1:09:38] concrete areas you can't in this area but you'll see them if you drive over there.
[1:09:43] And so that's moving forward. Right here there's an entrance. They're working on electricals
[1:09:50] right here in front of this. You got a big pit where they're working on those electrical
[1:09:55] Electrical items. They're also working on the state.
[1:10:00] Page right here in this area. You can see the footings are the, I guess you call those piers for the, for the foundation of the stage, just south or just west of the pavilion there. And if you go out there and drive at the intersection down here, you'll see the, the pawn walls. Where they've started pouring those. I never thought I would see the pawn walls. There, there, they're excited to see pawn walls. They're there and there's no water lines leaking or anything. It looks a lot of water like dry ground.
[1:10:29] So we like that. A lot of rain that's all of that off, so I'm very excited. I also
[1:10:35] would note that all the sports courts report, they don't have any markings on
[1:10:40] them yet, so they're just like concrete, but they're all there, they're all
[1:10:42] poured, and what you see is a little stub outs for the canopy that's fixing to go
[1:10:47] up over the top of the shade structure.
[1:10:53] And this is the same thing. This is
[1:10:55] Is this a, everything I just described to you and I mentioned the coordination meeting
[1:11:03] we're going to have with the well-driller and Hillin-Lukasin and Kenley Horn and the
[1:11:09] staff.
[1:11:09] See you, staff.
[1:11:10] Very good.
[1:11:11] How many questions are there?
[1:11:13] Very good.
[1:11:14] At this time, the floor is open.
[1:11:16] If you have any questions for staff.
[1:11:19] I have one question.
[1:11:20] and how close are we to on time with town center park?
[1:11:24] What is the projected, where are we on that?
[1:11:28] So right now everything we see kind of says the mean march.
[1:11:33] Is what it looks like.
[1:11:35] Now there's gonna be some coordination that has to happen
[1:11:37] because the well-driller once he moves in,
[1:11:38] he's gonna take, let me back up right here.
[1:11:42] Well, actually it probably better.
[1:11:44] I believe that says where it says field C right there,
[1:11:48] That field will not be able to be completed while the well drill is working.
[1:11:52] That's going to be his lay down yard and where he's drilling.
[1:11:54] So depending on when he can get substantially complete with drilling the hole
[1:12:00] and then get back out, because there will be a gap where we wait on the electric to come in,
[1:12:05] there may not be completed there, but have to pull off and then come back and complete that portion.
[1:12:12] We're using the dry pond to get on and off.
[1:12:18] no sir we're going to come straight through here where the we are yeah that's
[1:12:24] the drive on oh yeah I'm sorry I get confused with the dry creek you're right
[1:12:27] drop on okay not the parking no the drill rig would come in right yeah so
[1:12:38] so both of those areas will have to be completed after the after the drill rig
[1:12:41] moves out yeah so when are the plantings going in will they go
[1:12:50] in soon enough to take advantage of the cooler and wetter weather. I'm going to ask Joel
[1:12:58] or Emily to answer to that. They talked about that a little bit today and I think the
[1:13:02] answer is no. Yeah, it's because this is Emily Drake but can we. I was the lead landscape
[1:13:11] architect on the project because we're getting into the fall season which is then going
[1:13:17] go right into winter and the plants are going to go dormant and we're still
[1:13:23] dealing with getting the well drilled and there's a big field that's going to
[1:13:27] have a lot of sod that needs to be put on. So the planting is actually not going to
[1:13:30] happen until probably beginning of March. That's what we're saying March for the
[1:13:34] opening. In to February after that last freeze that we typically get middle of
[1:13:40] February is when we're going to start seeing all of the planting come in and by
[1:13:44] then everything will be ready for it. Irrigation will be complete and everything
[1:13:46] Thank you, so I have a follow up question.
[1:13:49] So how much, I mean, I know when getting established,
[1:13:53] you'll need to water them frequently.
[1:13:55] How many months into that?
[1:13:57] Do you see that going March, April, May, or beyond that?
[1:14:00] So for a plan to be established, it's a year process.
[1:14:05] So that first year, you're going to be watering it.
[1:14:08] At our maximum, you're ever going to see them watered
[1:14:11] until they're completely established.
[1:14:12] and then we'll get into a more kind of regular maintenance of the planting.
[1:14:23] I was going to say it has a 6 on the front.
[1:14:29] You said don't do math and don't ask me numbers without a piece of paper in front of me.
[1:14:34] So yeah.
[1:14:36] I believe I have a table that you sent over.
[1:14:39] Yes, it's all been quantified by our irrigation consultant.
[1:14:42] So, we do have this number if you want those more specifically.
[1:14:46] Very good.
[1:14:47] Counseling further questions.
[1:14:48] Emily, what are the points of inflection that milestones are for the next few months?
[1:14:54] We are going to really start things.
[1:14:55] So, in the next few weeks, you're actually going to see a lot of verticals.
[1:15:00] Start happening. We have about half of the parkour quit the playground equipment on site. Once those footings get poured, as I think it's supposed to happen next week, pending any rain, you'll start seeing all of those start to go up so probably within the next three to four weeks, you'll see the playground installed, the equipment installed. And the stage is being poured. You'll start to see that we just made our final submittal for the roofing today. So you'll start to
[1:15:29] I see that come to the site probably in the end of October, so four weeks, and then
[1:15:38] they're pouring the spiral at the end of the festival street.
[1:15:42] This week they've got it all formed up.
[1:15:44] It's super really, really cool looking.
[1:15:49] The pickle ball structure is the next big thing that you're going to see go up.
[1:15:53] Once it's up, then we can paint the courts, then we can start getting the fencing back
[1:15:59] up. So in the next month, you're going to see a lot of verticals go up.
[1:16:04] Right. So it'll be really important that we socialize that with our community
[1:16:08] absolutely for people that have been waiting. I mean, it's like every building
[1:16:12] it's a hole in the ground. Yep. Then Brian gets excited about footers and
[1:16:15] underground electrical work. And then the rest of us look at vertical
[1:16:19] structures. Yes. Yeah. And once the dry pond walls get all cured and everything
[1:16:24] they'll start putting masonry on it. And that'll start looking great. And that'll
[1:16:27] have but in the next month to six weeks you're going to see a whole lot of
[1:16:31] things happen right that kind of wraps some of that stuff up and then unfortunately
[1:16:36] it's going to be the well kind of coming in and getting drilled that kind of
[1:16:39] pushes us into those winter months in which we can't plan so that's what's kind of
[1:16:44] pushing it out to March so very good thank you council any further question thank
[1:16:51] you are welcome are
[1:16:57] there any further questions for staff very well thank you
[1:17:01] Mr. Crane, appreciate the update.
[1:17:04] Moving into agenda item 7.9.
[1:17:06] This is the Water and Infrastructure Committee update.
[1:17:10] So as a quick reminder, this council has worked diligently
[1:17:14] and we created some subcommittees.
[1:17:17] Some of those subcommittees are transportation,
[1:17:20] subcommittee on water, subcommittee on customer service.
[1:17:23] So thank you, Council Dodson, for representing your committee.
[1:17:26] I look forward to the update.
[1:17:28] Thank you very much, Mr. Mayor, fellow council members and citizens of Heath, I'd like
[1:17:34] to take the next six or seven hours and go through the next on the agenda.
[1:17:42] It will not be the first time that the mayor is shutting down, so we literally boil the
[1:17:49] proverbial ocean on this topic and there's still a lot left to do and I'm just very pleased
[1:17:56] to represent this committee tonight and bring our discussion items and findings in front
[1:18:02] of this group for your thoughts and consideration and then some recommendations that we'll
[1:18:08] have at the end of this Mr. Mayor as well.
[1:18:14] How do I go the other way this way?
[1:18:15] Here we go.
[1:18:16] All right, great.
[1:18:17] So we looked at populating five different pillars with our group that we're going to spend
[1:18:23] some time talking about that we really looked at in pretty great detail and you know we looked
[1:18:30] primarily at supply, storage, conservation and education, water loss, infrastructure and maintenance.
[1:18:39] Please excuse the typos. It was a late evening last night. Our committee consisted of the following
[1:18:48] including individuals, Steve Alexander, Ryan Mormon, Johnny Myers, Brian Creed, Candace
[1:18:54] Gillespie, president of the FNH construction, Suzanne Brooke, Heath Director Communications,
[1:19:00] Norma Duncan, and then Dr. Michael Heitz, who's the chief information officer at SMU to
[1:19:07] help us with some macro data analysis in a lot of the different calculations that we were
[1:19:12] working on with regards to the overall expected water usage for a city like
[1:19:17] Heath, not only for more we're at today, but on our expected build out in the
[1:19:23] future as well. So assuming you could read this, let me just draw your attention to
[1:19:28] just a couple of points here on this particular slide. This really sort of a
[1:19:34] baseline slide into what we know today. And Steve covered a bit of this at the
[1:19:39] top just with regards to the amount of water that we have on hand, but then we
[1:19:43] really got into some calculations. And those calculations really assume that
[1:19:48] you know today's heat population is around 11.2 thousand people are projected
[1:19:55] build out per our comprehensive plan is around 17,000.
[1:20:00] So, if 7 million gallons per day supports a population of 11,000, then the combined total of what we have on hand and in future plans from the city of Rockwall, and the estimates that we should enumer from the additional wells that we'll put online, and some potential for some additional future water from additional water sources, takes us to about 15.5 million gallons,
[1:20:28] which should support a population of 17,000 or so people with a buffer.
[1:20:35] So it's impossible to decide really what that buffer is going to be or how much it
[1:20:40] should be or what impact I think conservation will have on our city on a go-forward basis.
[1:20:49] But these are all things that we're going to move against and plan for as well.
[1:20:54] So here are the items with that as a backdrop that we discussed.
[1:20:59] Things like peak demand, our water challenge isn't a year around challenge, it's a four
[1:21:06] to five-month-a-year challenge with regards to the peak demand that we have, primarily
[1:21:10] due to irrigation.
[1:21:12] If it was just supplying water to households, we would have it in spades we'd pack up and
[1:21:16] go home.
[1:21:17] But that's really not the situation that we have here because we mandate as a city that
[1:21:22] that we have one house for one acre of developable land given our ordinance of SF-43 and with
[1:21:30] that comes some additional water usage. However, Dr. Heitz did some assessment for us with
[1:21:36] regards to the actual home usage given the different lot sizes that we have in Heath and there's
[1:21:43] a significant number of very small lots like one-third acre lots that are using a massive
[1:21:48] of amount of water. So it's really kind of all over the spectrum. So something to consider
[1:21:53] here is not only do we have large home lots on a future plan basis, but we also have to
[1:22:00] rain in the excessive water usage from some of the lots that fall under that size restriction
[1:22:08] as well. So we looked at conservation projections and the reliability of those. We talked a lot
[1:22:14] as a group about what other cities have done on the conservation side and the benefit that they
[1:22:20] received for those cities for exercising pretty stringent conservation activities. And you'll hear a
[1:22:29] little bit about that in a few minutes. We've already talked about water rate tiers and the tiers
[1:22:34] that we'll have as a city are really designed from a behavior standpoint to take a look at the very
[1:22:42] high users, the ones that use an excessive amount, and try to bring them into a range of
[1:22:48] reasonableness so that the city can ignore the benefit of that excessive water that's
[1:22:54] being used by those customers.
[1:22:56] We talked tonight about the bond amounts based on the well and the storage costs and the
[1:23:01] timing.
[1:23:01] I think we made a solid decision with regards to our use and adjudication of a smaller bond,
[1:23:08] which reflects in a smaller increase in the water rates required to pay for that bond and we're
[1:23:15] also looking at two non-potable water well assets here in the city of Heath that are in existence
[1:23:22] that we may be able to utilize for non-potable purposes. Not only for irrigation, let's say in our
[1:23:29] town center park but the development of the reserve and other projects that will be developed in the
[1:23:36] future for our city. Again our issues we sit here tonight and as we've sat here for a while
[1:23:43] isn't day-to-day water usage it is an irrigation challenge and that irrigation challenge manifests
[1:23:49] itself for what we affectionately call Africa season which we're coming out of right now which we
[1:23:55] should be able to climb back on top of the supply that we have and utilize that on a go-forward basis.
[1:24:00] So storage, currently we have about 2 million gallons of storage and elevated tanks today.
[1:24:08] We have a 3 million gallon in-ground storage facility and as Mr. Creed talked about earlier,
[1:24:15] as well as Steve Alexander, we are planning to build an additional 1.5 million gallon elevated
[1:24:21] tank which we hope to have completed by the end of 2027.
[1:24:26] The long poll and the tent, I think, on a lot of these projects has to do with engineering.
[1:24:31] It's no fault of the engineers.
[1:24:33] It just takes some while to develop the plans for this.
[1:24:36] The engineering timeline for the elevated tank is about 200 days.
[1:24:40] The engineering timeline for an in-ground tank is about 400 days.
[1:24:44] So splitting those two projects apart from bond one and bond two seemed to make sense for
[1:24:50] us just from a adjudication of those dollars so that we can use the dollars and pull those
[1:24:55] dollars down when we need them as opposed to pull all of it down.
[1:25:00] And then hold that in reserve for some period of time potentially at a higher interest rate. So, you know, we looked at current storage capacity in 2025, today being about 5 million gallons. And by the end of this exercise and these investments will essentially double that storage capacity to around 10 million gallons for the city. So we talked about the length of the time for the engineering, the timing of the co-development for the 3 million gallon in ground tank.
[1:25:28] and the reality there is we really don't have control over the 3 million gallon storage tank that we're partnering with the city of Rockwall 4.
[1:25:40] So we do have control or at least more control over the 1.5 million elevated tank and the 3 million gallon in ground tank which is what we have engineering services approved for today.
[1:25:51] So we also talked about additional assets needed for Wells 5 and 6.
[1:25:55] So, wells 1 through 4 effectively are co-located by either elevated storage systems and or in ground systems that can take on that water and then move the water through the overall water system within heat.
[1:26:11] Those two things at least were wells 5 and 6 are at least slated to go right now.
[1:26:18] They are really not co-located within any other storage facility.
[1:26:22] So we have to look at some different infrastructure with regards to pipe, with regards to pumps.
[1:26:27] And we have to get that water moved to a place where it can be pressurized and then put
[1:26:31] throughout a yeast water supply system.
[1:26:35] The overall timing of the storage assets we talked about as well, and we confirmed tonight
[1:26:41] that we'll be staging these bonds to match the work effort.
[1:26:45] So on the conservation side, and I'm only really going to talk about a couple points here because
[1:26:51] Suzanne Brooke just did an absolutely brilliant job of this a little bit later
[1:26:57] here in the presentation. But so much of this messaging, branding and
[1:27:01] positioning of our water conservation effort, I think it's critical for a city
[1:27:05] like ours. As you saw from the graph that Steve Alexander put up earlier, we're
[1:27:12] not the lowest water user in the area. We are one of the highest water users in the
[1:27:18] area even on cities that are two and three times our size.
[1:27:22] That draws the attention of our water provider, which is North Texas Municipal Water District.
[1:27:27] So us engaging in a water conservation program will also draw their attention but in a very
[1:27:33] favorable way.
[1:27:35] Steve's put in some calls to their executive director.
[1:27:38] They're now looking very favorably on the things that we plan to do here in Heath to help
[1:27:43] us overall get and draw their favorable attention to move these things forward and to become more
[1:27:49] of a model city on how we react in order to the scarce resource that we have with water.
[1:27:55] So we're real excited about that. We're also going to look at modifying the water map on the
[1:28:01] daily water maps that we have today. You know, we have a few days, a couple of days of the week that
[1:28:07] use significantly more than the rest of the days and we're going to look to balance those out
[1:28:12] and socialize those with the community during the non-Africa type season, which starts in October and goes through the beginning of May.
[1:28:23] So there's a potential upside with compliance on conservation, but it's going to really be rooted in education
[1:28:30] and really putting forward the sustained effort with regards to what this program looks like in the field.
[1:28:37] So this will require a multi-level marketing approach.
[1:28:40] So for those of you in the private sector, it will involve social media, direct contact and marketing on a sustained effort over a long period of time.
[1:28:51] And just when you're sick of putting all the messaging out there, the community will just start paying attention to it.
[1:28:57] And that's okay because that's the way these things work. So Suzanne's got a great plan for that.
[1:29:05] So we talked about this piece.
[1:29:09] So we've talked a lot also about sort of beating the peak and water the
[1:29:14] Heathway and the Heathway is a responsible way that we really want to get
[1:29:18] behind and watering on your days of execution. We've seen that throughout this
[1:29:24] year that when people take that into consideration we use significantly less
[1:29:29] water. So out of around 4,100 homes that we have in the city of Heath, at some
[1:29:34] One point to the year early on, we had about a 10% noncompliance rate.
[1:29:38] And that 10% noncompliance rate on people watering on their non-watering days, comprised
[1:29:44] of about 1.2 to 1.5 million gallons of additional water usage, just from the people not watering
[1:29:51] on the days they're supposed to.
[1:29:53] So we were able through, I think, constant communication to lower that to around 5%.
[1:29:59] So the...
[1:30:00] All Delta wasn't as great, and so we believe that the messaging is getting out there, and we're going to stay consistent with that as time goes on. So what Suzanne has put together here is a multi-level chart of Biblical proportions. And you know, what supposing that you could read this, you would see that there's a social media section, a website section, a targeted update section, an events and a PR section where we bring in subject matter
[1:30:29] experts that talk about water-wise techniques and using Texas native plants and how much
[1:30:36] water to put on your lawn and everything else and a lot of this is really going to be wrapped
[1:30:41] around what we're doing here at Towns Center Park because that's really going to be the
[1:30:44] showcase for us to really step out and talk to our citizens about what these plantings look like,
[1:30:50] what these soft skate materials are and then you don't have to look at zero escape with rocks and
[1:30:55] and cactuses in your yard to be water wise and conscious about that.
[1:31:01] We also have a 90-day plan that will be executed against at the conclusion of this meeting starting
[1:31:08] in October and it will include all of these elements and open for discussion and consideration
[1:31:14] will be a town hall meeting where we'll talk about the elements of conservation where we'll
[1:31:19] talk about our water bridge plan, the timing for that, and continue to bring the citizens
[1:31:24] of this town along with us as we embark on these big capital intensive projects.
[1:31:32] From a water loss standpoint, you know, our two areas that this covers includes evaporation and system leakage.
[1:31:41] Ryan Mormon and I think Dr. Heitz did a calculation that kind of at the peak during our summer we can lose up to about 400,000 gallons a day
[1:31:50] just on the pools that are on the ground in Heath and water evaporation.
[1:31:54] And we were fortunate this year not to have a truckload of triple digit days, but you guys
[1:32:00] know what I mean when you have to go out there and turn your pool pump on to kind of
[1:32:04] refill those things.
[1:32:06] But overall, I think that we must develop a plan for the assessment of our water loss and
[1:32:11] a plan to reduce this over time.
[1:32:14] We've got this wonderful Ferrari of a water management system that's now in place with
[1:32:19] the new water meters that we have and I think that this will give us the ability to take
[1:32:24] a look at that and analyze that data to look at outliers and see if there are leaks
[1:32:29] in the system so that we can take care of those quickly and that we're not spending water
[1:32:36] in until places so that we have the ability to use that for our citizens.
[1:32:42] I think also one of the things that we need to do is we need to calculate the water we're
[1:32:46] going to need for our park on an ongoing basis, not only on the installation side, which
[1:32:51] will be about 600,000 gallons a day, while all of the soft skate materials, particularly
[1:32:57] the grass, which is the big water hog, to basically get seeded in really the right way,
[1:33:04] but really on an ongoing basis as well, maintenance costs are something I think that are overlooked,
[1:33:09] but end up biting you in future budget years.
[1:33:12] So we want to look at that as well.
[1:33:16] So, you know, we looked at things such as, you know, how does our estimate on park watering
[1:33:21] demand and future commercial development impact water needs? And, you know, what do we need
[1:33:27] from a non-potable water perspective to actually go after these things? And this year with so many
[1:33:32] line breakages, and it's like playing Wacomole, I think, for about two or three months out of the year
[1:33:37] this year, every time that we had a contractor in Heath, they ended up hitting lines that, you know,
[1:33:43] we just didn't know anything about.
[1:33:45] So our intelligence has to get better on kind of what we have
[1:33:48] underground because as building takes place,
[1:33:51] we can't afford all of these outages.
[1:33:54] And also, how does Heath improve its redundancy
[1:33:58] given our dependence on rock wall for our water supply?
[1:34:01] Right now, we are absolutely tied to the city of rock wall
[1:34:05] with regards to every drop of water that we get.
[1:34:08] And I think that's a fairly vulnerable position to be in.
[1:34:11] So I think that having wells online or having parallel lines gives us the ability to explore redundancy options
[1:34:20] which will benefit the city and the citizens that are in heath as well.
[1:34:27] So on the infrastructure and on the maintenance side, just two items here.
[1:34:32] You know, we need to proactively update our infrastructure.
[1:34:35] We have aging infrastructure, old pipes and connections.
[1:34:40] and we have some big capital expenses coming up with regards to the motors that are going to be used in the electronics that are going to be used on these well systems.
[1:34:50] Like we found out just a few years ago where we had a pump went down and we had to wait quite a while for a new pump to become available.
[1:34:58] and I think
[1:35:00] In the perfect storm, it was kind of during the COVID season. We're really nothing was available, you know, anyway. We need to avoid that at all costs and plan in the future for some backup and some redundancy given our reliance on these systems on a go-forward basis. So, Dr. Heights, I'd like to thank you for your incredible brain power and your analytical capability in helping us come up with some of these models and some of these issues where we're kind of looking around corners.
[1:35:29] trying to solve for the unseen things and running companies in what have you in
[1:35:34] the past. I know you've been in the private sector as well. You have to be able to
[1:35:38] see around corners and be able to predict the future even when it's not clear.
[1:35:42] So thanks for your help with there.
[1:35:46] So this slide just basically talks to some of
[1:35:49] the subject matter experts that we've reached out to that have voiced their
[1:35:53] willingness to come in and assist us. The agriculture and natural resources team at
[1:35:59] Texas A&M, the TCEQ Committee has offered to come in and work with us as well.
[1:36:08] We talked about North Texas Municipal Water District, the North Central Texas Council of
[1:36:13] Governments, and also deep well-drilling experts who have significantly added to at least
[1:36:20] our knowledge.
[1:36:21] I think Brian's the only one that has expertise, but the rest of us just have an ongoing
[1:36:26] knowing knowledge base with regards to what it takes to put holes in the ground and casing and pumps and motors and pull things out that we can actually drink and enjoy in our daily lives.
[1:36:37] But we have a whole system of people that I think are willing to come in and work with us at the committee level and work with us at the city level to help us get smarter and to help us get better at what we're doing for our overall water plan.
[1:36:50] So,
[1:36:56] our immediate recommendations are as follows.
[1:36:59] We are already in the midst of executing well number one.
[1:37:02] We've already approved engineering for the elevated and the in-ground storage in that
[1:37:07] centerway.
[1:37:09] As Brian mentioned earlier, staff is reviewing the engineering work for wells number two
[1:37:15] through number four.
[1:37:17] We need to then look at expediting the bid for the solicitation of the work for those wells
[1:37:22] and assess the requirements for the costs for wells number five and six, given the different
[1:37:29] items that those present to us in terms of the need for pumps and piping to get that water to
[1:37:35] the point where it can be utilized. We need and we look today and we accomplished modifying the bond
[1:37:42] to reflect the lower well-cost estimates and also the second bond option. So Steve, thanks for
[1:37:49] bringing that in front of the group. And again, you know, I get back to probably the biggest
[1:37:54] upside we have outside of supply is the conservation piece. So it's not something at the beginning
[1:38:01] of a process that you can put your finger on, but should we be successful with this? We can
[1:38:06] absolutely and we're the benefit potentially for future water supply needs by being able
[1:38:12] to exercise some conservation efforts with what we're doing here as a city as well. And
[1:38:19] with that, the less our demand will be, the less our demand will be, the less expensive
[1:38:23] it will be for us as citizens of this city.
[1:38:27] So in short, we talked about a lot, and I've talked a lot here tonight, and I'm sorry
[1:38:33] for that.
[1:38:34] But we got a lot left to do, right?
[1:38:36] And this committee will continue to move forward and try to wrestle to the ground some
[1:38:42] of the biggest issues surrounding a lot of these bullet points and action items here so
[1:38:47] so that we can help make the best decision possible
[1:38:49] and bring those recommendations in front of the mayor
[1:38:52] and the council and the citizens of Heath.
[1:38:55] So I'm happy to take any questions that you all might have.
[1:39:00] First off, let me just
[1:39:19] time council,
[1:39:19] are there any questions for councilman Dunes?
[1:39:24] Okay,
[1:39:28] moving into agenda item seven.j,
[1:39:30] transportation roads and drainage strategy committee.
[1:39:33] Update, councilman, they're good.
[1:39:41] Good evening.
[1:39:42] Hope you all bear with me.
[1:39:44] This is my first time all right. Oh
[1:39:52] look at that. It's it's really not that hard. Okay, got it. Here we go.
[1:39:55] Transportation roads and drainage strategy.
[1:40:00] So I have committee that I'm chairing, and along with myself, I have council member Ryan Mormon and council member Mitch Onbi, who are helping with this committee, as well as many members of the city staff. So our vision here is to create a sustainable, resilient and efficient transportation and drainage infrastructure system that enables public safety, supports responsible growth, and improves the quality of life for all residents here in Heath, Texas.
[1:40:29] Our mission statement is to partner with city staff, residents, engineers, and planners
[1:40:34] in prioritizing implementing and data-driven community-supported maintenance and capital
[1:40:40] improvement projects for transportation, drainage, emphasizing transparency, fiscal
[1:40:46] responsibility, and environmental stewardship.
[1:40:50] So here we have the strategies, and I'll be going into greater depth on these strategies
[1:40:58] on subsequent slides, but just to say that coordinating with staff, we work with city staff
[1:41:05] to improve teamwork and keep projects moving smoothly. We assess needs and data by looking
[1:41:11] at community input and data to understand the needs and the set the right priorities for
[1:41:15] our community. CIP, which is the capital improvement projects, are to review big city projects
[1:41:23] and make sure that they line up with today's needs and priorities.
[1:41:27] Identifying funding is always important.
[1:41:31] We find ways to pay for projects by seeking grants using fees and building partnerships.
[1:41:36] Engaging with the community is really important.
[1:41:40] We connect with the community through social media and person events and other ways
[1:41:45] in order to gather input and keep residents informed.
[1:41:49] And then pursuing sustainable and resilient solutions, we plan for the long term by choosing
[1:41:55] solutions that last and can handle future challenges.
[1:41:59] Here we go.
[1:42:00] So we have a few items on here to consider.
[1:42:04] First of all, we've got customer service and we review conditions assessments and have
[1:42:11] identified some priorities for repairs.
[1:42:16] The CIP list was last updated in 2020, and this is where we stand currently.
[1:42:24] We have two CIP projects completed, White Road and Rabbit Ridge, and a third Hubbard Drive,
[1:42:31] which we've talked about this evening, is still under construction.
[1:42:36] Another thing, under Assess Needs, you see a community CRM, that's a customer request management program,
[1:42:43] and that is a way for the community to be engaged when they see a need that arises on a roadway.
[1:42:52] This is the way they can inform the city and this program goes to report street issues
[1:43:02] and it gathers that data so we can put it in our assessments.
[1:43:08] So, here we go, pavement condition report.
[1:43:13] This is a PCI, pavement condition index, all right?
[1:43:18] And the score is from 0 to 100 on the condition of the roads,
[1:43:22] 0 being very, very poor, failed, and 100 being good, good.
[1:43:28] So you'll see that 87% of these streets, 87% of the street miles,
[1:43:34] I should say that in the city are scored as fair or better.
[1:43:39] So that's not terrible, but we certainly have room for improvement.
[1:43:44] And if you live on any of these roads or near any of these roads and traffic,
[1:43:50] these roads frequently that score worse than fair or even sometimes fair,
[1:43:57] you might really feel like there is some work to be done here.
[1:44:01] and we are excited to get to work.
[1:44:04] The City of Heath in 2025, Road Maintenance Program Goals,
[1:44:11] we have actually not had a Road Maintenance Program or crew.
[1:44:19] And tonight that's going to change because we approved the budget
[1:44:23] for the upcoming fiscal year, and along with that comes the budget
[1:44:28] for a designated road maintenance crew.
[1:44:32] And that's going to be very exciting.
[1:44:35] Just to set the expectations, though,
[1:44:37] this is not a, it's a rudiment tree crew.
[1:44:43] They will be equipped to fill potholes
[1:44:45] and fix street signs, but they will not
[1:44:48] be replacing concrete, right?
[1:44:51] Panels or anything of that nature.
[1:44:53] That's far more, yeah, far more work
[1:44:56] then the two-man crew will be able to do, but I am...
[1:45:00] Really excited that this is a marked a day marked in history with our city to finally have a road maintenance crew that is designated to help with our roads on the everyday. So, staff is pursuing currently a request for proposals, which is an RFP to launch the 2025 road maintenance program. When we started meeting several months ago, we've had seven meetings thus far over the past several months. And five of those meetings have been with staff.
[1:45:31] And initially, we didn't have any money and therefore we really didn't have, you know,
[1:45:37] it was very much for a meeting to dream about what we might do when we did have money.
[1:45:41] And so, the budget that was set aside to fix roads this year was earmarked to fix the bridge on MetaView Road,
[1:45:53] which we looked at earlier this evening.
[1:45:55] and when it came about that we were able to use funds from another source and therefore open up the funds for this year's budget for road maintenance.
[1:46:05] I felt like it was Christmas Day when Brian Creed announced that at our committee meeting and we got to work looking at, well, great, where do we start because there is a lot to be done.
[1:46:17] So we'll use that money to address concrete point repairs as identified and also to evaluate
[1:46:24] and implement asphalt overlay where that might be appropriate.
[1:46:28] All right, identifying funding.
[1:46:31] So I've talked a little bit about, we have a little bit of money.
[1:46:34] Albert Drive is being funded through existing resources.
[1:46:37] Metavue repair will be funded through existing resources.
[1:46:41] Terry Lane will in large part be funded through the county funds.
[1:46:45] I think they have earmarked about $2 million for that.
[1:46:51] So that's wonderful.
[1:46:52] So staff is also reaching out to a few other funding resources.
[1:46:58] There's a lot of letters that probably don't mean much to you and I have them on my sheet
[1:47:02] somewhere if I can.
[1:47:04] Anyhow, I'm not sure that you really care.
[1:47:06] But NC TCOG and TWDB and TCEQ are also ways we can, they are sources where we can apply
[1:47:17] for grants and other ways to, perhaps, help with funding issues.
[1:47:22] Engaging the community, we talked a little bit about the community response and request
[1:47:32] the best line that we have with the city in order to log the community, asking for certain repairs to be done, and therefore we can have that communicated and have that a part of the equation essentially.
[1:47:46] We do prioritize roads that impact the most residents and also are in the worst shape.
[1:47:53] So those are the, I guess, the ways we look at the priorities that need a road to repairs
[1:48:02] that need to be fixed.
[1:48:05] So solutions, there's a lot I can say about the solutions, let's see here, okay.
[1:48:14] The solutions.
[1:48:16] So let's just go through these.
[1:48:17] First of all establishing a storm water ordinance to provide a fee for storm water management.
[1:48:23] It's something we've definitely discussed in our meetings and perhaps something that could
[1:48:28] come to an agenda item is we really don't have the funds to fix a lot of our drainage issues
[1:48:35] that come up in the city and there are many and we do have a list of things that need to be addressed
[1:48:42] with that but we really don't have the funding clearly identified to tackle
[1:48:49] that list. Does that make sense? So that's something that we are currently
[1:48:53] working on and that might come up for an agenda item in a subsequent meeting.
[1:48:59] Updating the city's engineering design standards for road and
[1:49:03] drainage infrastructure. When our resident Ginny here got up and said that she
[1:49:08] in 1991, I believe.
[1:49:12] Oh, 1971. Oh, okay. Wow, that was a long time ago. Well, so I wrote
[1:49:19] that down wrong. No, our ordinances were, I haven't been updated since about 91, so about
[1:49:25] 20 years after you moved here, so not then, but it's been a long time, even still, because
[1:49:31] 1991 and 93, 92, 93, those for the years, which those ordinances were done, and it's time
[1:49:37] to update those and that is certainly something I look forward to our committee will work
[1:49:44] with a new engineer in which the city is hiring to address.
[1:49:49] And then another solution we're working on is to stand up, stand up, and start up,
[1:49:57] I think is what I meant to write there.
[1:50:00] An engineering division. Again, like I mentioned, we're hiring a new city engineer. That will be great. And then establish a street maintenance program, which is super exciting because now we have two people who will be a part of that ongoing program. So here we have a summary of what we've discussed here. Looking ahead, this is a reiteration of our plan, aligning it with available resources through an objective data driven process.
[1:50:29] in order to prioritize needs.
[1:50:35] Recently, at our last meeting, we collaborated
[1:50:38] with the Rockwell ISD on the Horizon Road Traffic.
[1:50:42] That is particularly acute during school drop-off
[1:50:47] and pick-up times.
[1:50:49] So this is an issue that has come up
[1:50:52] and has had a lot of citizen engagement and concern
[1:50:56] and it was a very productive meeting.
[1:50:59] I feel we had with them and where we did actually come to an agreement of some things we're
[1:51:05] going to consider to alleviate the traffic.
[1:51:08] Now, along with engaging, I just wanted to point out here that, along with our committee
[1:51:12] engaging with the city staff and they are invaluable because they tell us all of the things that
[1:51:18] we need to know in order to take action on improving our city roads.
[1:51:24] We had the special privilege of also meeting in person with representatives from Rockwell, ISD.
[1:51:31] Now although communication between the city and school district has historically been positive,
[1:51:36] the committee emphasizes the importance of strengthening relationships through direct interaction.
[1:51:43] And this meeting created an opportunity to align ourselves on shared priorities and
[1:51:48] reaffirm the joint responsibility for maintaining safe, efficient transportation and
[1:51:52] traffic flow around the school facilities.
[1:51:55] Recognizing the school district as one of the city's key partners,
[1:51:59] the committee is committed to ongoing collaboration to support the safety of children and
[1:52:04] parents during daily school commutes and to coordinate on infrastructure needs that directly impact schools.
[1:52:11] So I really look forward to some solutions coming from that soon.
[1:52:19] This is a journey. It's not a sprint. When I was running for this seat on the City Council,
[1:52:27] I was motivated by a lot of these things we've been tackling in this subcommittee.
[1:52:31] And my perception then was it would be way easier to accomplish the things that are not
[1:52:37] impossible, but it's not a snap of the fingers. But I am now seeing the road and we all are.
[1:52:47] seen the road ahead to accomplish the goals that we have and I absolutely am
[1:52:52] excited to see them get accomplished. But do are there any questions at this time?
[1:52:57] Very good. Thank you, Councilwoman. At this time, Chair Wilhelm, if you have any
[1:53:01] questions toward the Councilwoman, let me continue to say thank you. Again you
[1:53:10] guys worked a lot of items to even boil it down. It starts really high and you
[1:53:20] You guys have been able to do that, and I'm very excited to see what you guys do moving forward as we continue to tackle an update of our thoroughfare plan, as well as working on items for some of these roads that we do have major concerns with.
[1:53:35] So thank you.
[1:53:36] Appreciate it. Moving into agenda item 7.k, customer service committee update, Councilman Dodson.
[1:53:45] Thanks very much, Mayor.
[1:53:49] We worked as a committee on really one large overarching item, and that is how do you improve
[1:53:56] customer service with a city knowing that all the citizens that we engage with are
[1:54:02] in effect customers of the city and clients of the city in many, many cases.
[1:54:09] So, we had the distinct privilege to look at things through a different set of lenses
[1:54:15] throughout this particular exercise.
[1:54:18] And you know, one of the things that we talked about was how do we delight our citizens
[1:54:22] with a real service-oriented culture?
[1:54:26] How can we change the narrative from, oh my God, I've got to call the city, too?
[1:54:31] Wow, you know, I actually had a pretty good experience and they really helped me with
[1:54:34] the problem that I had.
[1:54:35] And I think a lot of it starts internally, but I think a lot of it also falls on the
[1:54:42] responsibility of everyone that engages with citizens including Council, including
[1:54:47] the boards that we have as well as city staff.
[1:54:51] So our team consisted of Mr. Alexander, myself, Cindy Horn, Dan and McDermott are I
[1:55:00] My team manager and Logan Petty are deputy city secretary. And what we really spent some time looking at, and our key objectives were really as follows. How do we create a service oriented culture within a municipality? How do we establish clear and measurable specific expectations for our customer facing staff? How do we empower staff with the tools and the skills mindset to deliver excellent results? And how do we make it easy for residents to provide
[1:55:29] feedback, express concerns, and solve problems.
[1:55:34] And then at the end of the day, how do we evaluate our effectiveness, leveraging digital
[1:55:38] tools to enhance that engagement and our responsiveness and accountability so that the calls that
[1:55:47] come in don't end up in the circular file.
[1:55:50] Or you get lost in the nested loop of the digital underground where you get six telephone
[1:55:56] own prompts, which lead you to someone hanging up on you, which is certainly akin to kind
[1:56:03] of ruining your day. So, our service pillars are really just three. And we talked a lot
[1:56:09] about the Heath way, and I'm going to have Steve Alexander talk about what that concept
[1:56:14] is, and what we're going to try to incorporate here in Heath, that's pervasive from top
[1:56:20] to bottom, not only in our city, but throughout our community as well. We're also going to
[1:56:25] talk about rewards and recognition, how do you catch people doing the right things?
[1:56:30] As opposed to how do you reprimand them for doing the wrong things?
[1:56:32] We want to catch people doing things right.
[1:56:35] We want to reward and we want to recognize them for that.
[1:56:37] We want to celebrate that and we want everybody to kind of participate along those lines.
[1:56:43] And then as was talked about with Shell and with others, how do we engage our citizens
[1:56:48] in a meaningful, easy-to-use portal where everyone can take and use their cell phones and
[1:56:54] and access the portal and talk about concerns
[1:56:57] or talk about engagement with a system
[1:57:00] that will track their call and their complaint
[1:57:03] or their service request all the way through
[1:57:06] and even automatically escalate it
[1:57:08] throughout our city staff so that everyone,
[1:57:12] particularly upper management,
[1:57:15] has the ability to see and to acknowledge these requests
[1:57:20] and follow up on them accordingly.
[1:57:23] So, with that, let me bring up Steve Alexander to talk about the Heathway, which I think
[1:57:27] is really the underpining of a lot of what this program is all about, Steve.
[1:57:40] I trust you'll back clean up for me.
[1:57:42] All right, John.
[1:57:44] Thank you.
[1:57:46] So, the Heathway,
[1:57:51] the idea is to memorialize a philosophy, to create a corporate culture
[1:57:59] that centers on the customer, right, focuses on customer service, you know, we don't have
[1:58:06] that memorialized as an organization. That's not to say we don't have great people doing
[1:58:11] great work every day in our organization, but it is important to, in my estimation, to
[1:58:17] establish memorialize, if you will, what we aspire to do for others. We're a service-based
[1:58:26] organization and so people that work here have a servant heart and so sometimes though they don't
[1:58:33] have anything to aim for as far as what is expected and so in council members in your packet and
[1:58:40] for members of the public would like to read it in the packet there is a document entitled The Heath
[1:58:45] Way and the idea is to again create an aspirational document of what we're seeking to be what we're
[1:58:55] seeking how we're, the expectations we're setting for ourselves.
[1:59:02] Things like, well let me back up, so when I talk about this kind of stuff, I'm reminded
[1:59:07] of a quote that was said to me many years ago about customer service and it kind of goes
[1:59:12] like impressions are formed by the accumulation of small surprises.
[1:59:17] So if somebody comes in, needs something, and they get about experience, over time that
[1:59:23] I can create a bad image, a bad feeling towards the organization.
[1:59:28] But even the smallest interactions, the smallest things that happen in a good way on a regular
[1:59:32] basis can create a good impression of the organization.
[1:59:36] So if somebody is coming to drop something off, they need some help for one of us as an
[1:59:40] employee here to take that and help that person get that done, or just simply following over
[1:59:45] the phone call to say, hey, did we meet your needs?
[1:59:47] Did we get your issue taken care of?
[1:59:49] Maybe we're not the one handling it.
[1:59:51] Maybe if I call if I get that person connected with the right person and I follow up with a phone call a few days later
[1:59:57] Say do we get everything taken care for you?
[2:00:00] It's a small thing, but impressions are formed by the accumulation of small surprises. It's not always expected to get a return phone call. Or maybe if city staff makes a mistake, or an organization makes us in a state, send some flowers, send a apology note. Something that you don't always see happen, but that's a small surprise, and over time, that accumulation of those small surprises will formulate a positive opinion of our organization. But we have to empower people to be able to do those things, right?
[2:00:29] we have to let people know that it's okay to take care of business in that way, that we expect
[2:00:35] our employees, our organization, to take care of its customers. And that's what the Heathway
[2:00:41] is about. Trying to set that in motion, and still that in our employees, preach it, train it,
[2:00:51] evaluate performance on it, and over time we end up with the Heathway, the way we want to conduct
[2:00:57] like business, the way we want to treat our customers,
[2:01:00] the way we want our customers to feel
[2:01:02] when they come to organization,
[2:01:03] or they call it our organization,
[2:01:06] that we want to make sure they have a good experience.
[2:01:08] To the extent we can, not all experiences are great, right?
[2:01:10] If you're paying a municipal court ticket,
[2:01:13] you may not be real happy about it.
[2:01:14] But perhaps if we had a jar of candy sitting out there
[2:01:16] for somebody to take a piece of candy
[2:01:18] while they're here doing it,
[2:01:19] it may make us feel a little better.
[2:01:20] I mean, it's small stuff, right?
[2:01:21] But it's how we treat our customers,
[2:01:23] how we want our customers to feel
[2:01:24] when they come here and they interact with us.
[2:01:27] You know, focusing on going beyond the golden rule, right?
[2:01:32] Golden rule is doing others as you would have them do unto you.
[2:01:34] Well, how about do better unto others as you would have them do unto you?
[2:01:39] That's the kind of mindset we want to have as an organization
[2:01:42] and that's what you'll find as you read the Heath way
[2:01:46] and what we want to start instilling in our employees
[2:01:50] and instilling in our, the folks that work on behalf of the citizens of Heath.
[2:01:58] taking a personal approach to how we do things, owning the issues as they come to us.
[2:02:04] I mentioned earlier about following up with a phone call.
[2:02:07] If we can take care of a residence complaint or if somebody that comes in and by the way,
[2:02:12] part of the Heath way is establishing what is a customer.
[2:02:15] How do we define a customer?
[2:02:16] It's not just, I mean, it is residents.
[2:02:19] It's internal employees working with each other.
[2:02:21] It's contractors that come in.
[2:02:22] Everybody we come in contact is a customer, right?
[2:02:25] And we want to make sure they're treated well and they have a good experience at the extent we can we can do that
[2:02:31] And but we want to own
[2:02:33] We want to own what that issue is now
[2:02:36] We may not be able to solve it
[2:02:37] But we can take that to the person can solve it and then again follow up make sure that person got the got what they needed out of
[2:02:44] Out of our organization
[2:02:45] Starting with the S in mind so often is governments you know
[2:02:48] I've been in this business for 31 years and so often we do get kind of caught up on the policies and procedures
[2:02:54] that are in front of us and we have to follow our policies and procedures right that's
[2:02:59] just part of can't break the rules kind of thing but maybe as opposed to just saying
[2:03:04] no we can't do that because we have a policy and procedure that won't allow us to do that
[2:03:08] maybe take a minute you know maybe say hey let me give it my supervisor and we can think
[2:03:13] this issue through and maybe through that process we find a different solution to the problem
[2:03:17] than maybe what the customer was asking us to do and so taking that time to to work with
[2:03:22] the customer and identify a solution
[2:03:25] that maybe the customer wasn't looking for
[2:03:27] but maybe still solves that problem.
[2:03:29] And those things can happen if you have the right mindset
[2:03:31] and you empower your people to do those things.
[2:03:34] And again, that's what the heath way is all about.
[2:03:39] I'll tell you this document is evolving, right?
[2:03:43] It'll be ever evolving.
[2:03:45] But the idea is if we can memorialize this
[2:03:47] and come together on this is that this is what we expect
[2:03:49] but how we want our customers treated.
[2:03:53] Then over time, as people change,
[2:03:54] that's just baked into the corporate culture, right?
[2:03:57] That's just how we do things.
[2:03:58] And so as we hire people, they know
[2:04:00] what is expected of them when they come here.
[2:04:03] When, you know, if people that get into understanding this
[2:04:07] and performing in the Heath way, retire at some point,
[2:04:10] they leave, well, the concept is in place.
[2:04:14] The philosophy is there.
[2:04:15] And so people behind us can come in,
[2:04:17] and pick up that philosophy and carry things out
[2:04:19] in the Heath way like we want them to do.
[2:04:22] That's the idea behind the Heath way.
[2:04:23] There's more to it than what I just went over.
[2:04:25] If you take the time to read it,
[2:04:27] but Council's comfortable with this at the end of the day.
[2:04:31] We will begin.
[2:04:32] We've already somewhat started training some of our staff on it,
[2:04:35] but we'll continue training our staff on it
[2:04:36] and expand it as appropriate.
[2:04:38] So you're good.
[2:04:39] Thank you, Mr. Alexander.
[2:04:50] So I will say thank you to again to that committee
[2:04:55] and the hard work that you guys have done, I know that, yes.
[2:05:06] I'll try to make this as quick as possible. I got about a minute and 30 seconds timed myself. So with the implementation of the Heathway, we wanted to create a work environment that people want to be a part of and that employees actually enjoy being at work every day. With that being said, we have come up with a few ideas for employee rewards and recognition.
[2:05:29] for catching employees living the heath way.
[2:05:33] Staff recognition to celebrate success with point systems, which we will have some options moving forward.
[2:05:40] For things like going above and beyond service, positive attitude, under fire, solving problems without being asked to do so.
[2:05:51] Appreciation from outside of staff, such as emails, phone calls, letters from residents, other vendors, etc.
[2:05:59] and employee milestones for
[2:06:02] anniversaries such as 5, 10, 15, 20 plus years
[2:06:06] working with Heath.
[2:06:08] Awards and celebrations can be done with
[2:06:11] quarterly lunchens where we can recognize
[2:06:13] employees for things like employee of the
[2:06:16] quarter, birthdays, anniversaries,
[2:06:19] accomplishments such as degrees, certifications,
[2:06:22] and other continuous education as well
[2:06:25] as additional award drawings.
[2:06:27] I think this is a great opportunity to help boost morale, enjoy going above and beyond and help staff want to live the heath way.
[2:06:37] Thank you, ma'am.
[2:06:41] Mr. McDermott,
[2:06:47] a filler with regards to the customer facing portal that will look to utilize to capture the feedback from the citizens with regards to what their concerns are and how we're doing and solving those concerns.
[2:07:03] Good evening. My name is Dana McDermott. I am the IT Director for the City of Heath. Not
[2:07:08] much of a public speaker, so I'm going to stick to the script on this one. So, bear
[2:07:13] with me. So, good evening, Madam Councilmembers. Tonight I just want to provide an update on our
[2:07:19] work to improve how residents connect with the city and report issues. As you know, Heath
[2:07:23] already uses OpenGov as our city management platform, including permitting a licensing
[2:07:28] which covers code enforcement, but OpenGov Citizen Request Module is a separate component,
[2:07:33] and so we've been evaluating options for handling citizens' service requests more effectively.
[2:07:39] To start, this shows the guiding priorities you used in evaluating the platforms. Our focus was on
[2:07:44] accessibility for citizens, transparent two-way communication, real-time updates, and the ability
[2:07:50] to gather feedback and trends. These principles are what help shape our comparison of the two systems.
[2:07:56] I apologize for the smallness of the text on that one.
[2:08:01] On this slide, you'll see the comparison between the OpenGov and GoGov mobile apps.
[2:08:06] OpenGov does have a mobile app, but it is managed by a third party called ComCate, and
[2:08:11] it's not very customizable.
[2:08:12] It's mainly for internal use, and is more limited to the citizen-facing side.
[2:08:17] Whereas on GoGov, on the right, it offers a fully branded city app that we can tailor directly
[2:08:22] to Heath, and it creates more consistent user-friendly experience.
[2:08:28] And that just kind of shows you, you know, the comparison, we once kind of pretty standard
[2:08:34] whereas the other one we can customize it as we want, and we can put our own branding
[2:08:37] on it.
[2:08:40] So, on this slide, it shows how the two platforms handle requests and code enforcement.
[2:08:46] OpenGov relies primarily on website submissions and email updates.
[2:08:50] Even though the ComCade app shows a request option, we were not shown this during the demo
[2:08:54] that we had with OpenGov, and so they made it seem like requests would still need to go
[2:08:58] to the Heath website and that the ComCade app would be mainly internal use only.
[2:09:02] It is integrated with asset management, which we do have, and that's for city repairs
[2:09:07] like potholes and such, but it does not integrate with our current permitting and licensing
[2:09:11] and code enforcement module.
[2:09:14] They did plan on integration with code enforcement by an API that was supposed to be alive this
[2:09:19] month, but we would most likely be one of the first people to test that product.
[2:09:23] And as we know, potential for issues could cause some disruption, so not too sure about
[2:09:30] that.
[2:09:31] The citizens would receive email updates, but there would be limited visibility on the
[2:09:35] website.
[2:09:36] And there is reporting for us to look up prior issues and scout trends and things like that,
[2:09:42] but there is no survey feature.
[2:09:43] It would be handled by a separate company like Survey and Mocky or something along those
[2:09:47] lines.
[2:09:49] Whereas on the ride with GoGov, you can see it allows request to flow directly into code
[2:09:52] enforcement, residents receive real-time updates to the app or with email and it includes
[2:09:58] a built-in survey module so we can check.
[2:10:00] Those things and we can reach back out to customers as we need to and so this all ensures issues attract and resolve transparently.
[2:10:09] On the strengths and costs, we compare, obviously the strengths and costs. Open Gov integrates well with asset management, which we have. It is an established software as a service provider, but it does come with some higher upfront costs. Whereas Gogov provides the mobile first experience, it's got transparent communication and it has no startup costs, which makes it easier and more affordable to launch quickly.
[2:10:32] It's also used by neighboring cities, so residents who have moved from those locations may already be familiar with the application and
[2:10:41] then you can see the breakdown of the cost right there.
[2:10:43] Open Gov would be a $10,000 per year. Over time, it is cheaper but there is a $10,000 start-up cost so first year we're looking at 20, whereas you're looking at three grand more per year for Gogov.
[2:10:58] And
[2:11:02] then on this one, this is just kind of going over the summary of our decision.
[2:11:06] Now, OpenGov remains a strong city management platform that we will continue to use for
[2:11:11] finance, permitting, and licensing.
[2:11:13] We do believe GoGov offers the best option for citizen engagement based on this review.
[2:11:20] Staff recommends moving forward with GoGov as our citizen requests module.
[2:11:26] So this slide right here is outlining the deployment schedule with GoGov.
[2:11:30] As you can see, the deployment time is roughly six weeks.
[2:11:33] We'll begin with configuration of staff training
[2:11:36] and then we'll move into testing
[2:11:37] to ensure everything is working smoothly.
[2:11:40] And then after that, we'll be ready for a public launch
[2:11:43] and begin our citizen outreach.
[2:11:46] Danny, can you talk about the citizen-facing training
[2:11:50] and education with this particular app?
[2:11:53] Yeah, sure.
[2:11:53] So as far as the citizen facing part of it,
[2:11:57] we will have a video on the website
[2:11:59] that will go over all the different features
[2:12:01] and things that you can do within the app.
[2:12:04] Basically, what happens whenever you put in a request?
[2:12:07] We'll have, most likely, a QR code on the website
[2:12:11] to send you to where you need to download the application.
[2:12:14] We'll have a brief FAQ just to answer some pretty general questions.
[2:12:21] But Go Gov tells us this is going to be a...
[2:12:24] And from what we've seen, it's a very intuitive app.
[2:12:27] easy to use, and so we believe it's going to be a really easy product to just pick up and use and get connected with the city and get what you need done.
[2:12:39] And finally, on this slide, this introduces what the app will be named. We're going to most likely go with MyHeath.
[2:12:48] It will be the name of the app and it's going to be powered by GoGov.
[2:12:54] Through my heath residents will be able to submit requests, report issues and share feedback
[2:12:58] in real time.
[2:12:59] It's designed to provide a clear, consistent and accessible way for citizens to engage
[2:13:03] directly with their city and help preserve the high standards they expect while also
[2:13:07] playing an active role in getting the future of heath together.
[2:13:12] Any questions?
[2:13:14] And Cindy, will you close us up, please?
[2:13:18] Yes.
[2:13:19] Absolutely.
[2:13:20] I'm
[2:13:28] going to talk about cost.
[2:13:29] The great news about this is with number one, the Heathway, there's no incremental cost.
[2:13:38] Those are going to be leveraging our existing resources and teams to make this part of
[2:13:43] our operating mindset as Steve laid out.
[2:13:48] The rewards and recognition, there's going to be also no incremental cost outside of what
[2:13:53] that is already budgeted.
[2:13:55] Citizen engagement portal, Danny just spoke on,
[2:13:59] it's going to be $13,680.
[2:14:03] This platform is going to significantly improve
[2:14:06] how we connect with the residents.
[2:14:08] It's gonna make it easier for them
[2:14:10] to find information, submit, feedback, and stay engaged.
[2:14:14] So that's a small price to pay for that.
[2:14:17] The Citizen Request Module, 7,500.
[2:14:20] It's streamlines our communication between citizens and staff and the code enforcement module $6,180.
[2:14:29] Let me click this.
[2:14:33] So, to bring it finally home, overall, this package reflects a thoughtful blend of cultural investment and digital modernization.
[2:14:42] Two of the initiatives have no incremental cost while the others, though they require modest funding, will provide long-term improvements in service,
[2:14:50] efficiency and citizen satisfaction. These investments, they're not just about software,
[2:14:56] they're about responsiveness, transparency.
[2:15:00] And building trust, which is what we want to do with the citizens. They help us deliver the kind of city experience that our residents expect while keeping costs contains and aligned with our strategic goals. So we are asking that we can implement the three elements of the Heath Customer Service experience and continue working with the committee to formalize and launch the program. That's all. Thank you. Thank you.
[2:15:28] one.
[2:15:30] Are there any other speakers? I tried her for the audience. I thought it was great.
[2:15:38] I just wasn't watching a cue. No, no, that's okay. I was going to bring Harriet up next.
[2:15:45] Bring her on. She's going to talk to you about Buffalo Creek. All right. Any other comments?
[2:15:52] Councilman Dodson. Very well. Any questions at this time? The floor is open for any questions.
[2:15:56] If there are no questions I will continue my statement and I appreciate you guys going even more steps forward to kind of go through the details.
[2:16:09] I'm very proud of the work that you guys are doing.
[2:16:13] I know that it's been at nauseam some days with staff when we talk about KPI management and accountability and who our customers are and ensuring that we have a culture.
[2:16:27] from the day it's all the way through the staff and making sure that our residents feel
[2:16:33] it and see it. And I know that we've got wonderful staff but even starting at that culture
[2:16:38] level the Heath way, I think it's great. And so I'm very proud of the work that Mr.
[2:16:43] Alexander you're doing to lead the staff. And thank you Council for these committees.
[2:16:49] This work is, it's tumultuous, it's a lot. And so just like I've said on each committee
[2:16:56] that's done these updates.
[2:16:58] We thank you guys for doing these updates,
[2:16:59] but I know that there's tireless hours
[2:17:02] that have gone into this.
[2:17:03] And for the residents, you know,
[2:17:05] that's on top of budget meetings and workshops
[2:17:07] and all of the different sidebars.
[2:17:09] I'm actually excited whenever I pull up
[2:17:11] and I see you guys are here in a meeting.
[2:17:13] I'm like, oh, that's great.
[2:17:14] I'm not here by myself.
[2:17:16] You guys are working diligently behind the scenes.
[2:17:19] So thank you guys because we do want to be best in class.
[2:17:22] And some of the things that we've done, right,
[2:17:24] Right, we started off, whenever I first took office, we started off on branding and who
[2:17:29] we are as a community and being a premier outdoor or lifestyle community.
[2:17:32] And then we jumped into it and we said, hey, look, let's go back to that conference
[2:17:35] and plan and let's figure out exactly what we're doing and there was two years prior to me
[2:17:40] even getting here and then we rounded that out and we said, hey, we're going to tackle
[2:17:43] water, we're going to tackle all these infrastructure needs, we're going to tackle budget, but we're
[2:17:48] also going to tackle some customer service and we're going to tackle some other things.
[2:17:51] We're going to tackle DPS and making sure that we're the safest city in the state of Texas.
[2:17:55] So again, tonight, thank you for that update, and I appreciate all your work that you're
[2:18:00] doing to give us this update, but we want to see more work, so there's a lot more to do.
[2:18:06] So thank you guys for that.
[2:18:08] If there are no other further comments, at this time, we'll move into agenda item number
[2:18:12] eight, and we will adjourn at 848.
[2:18:15] Thank you, everyone.