[2:27] Hello everyone. It is 6:00. I'd like to call this meeting to order. Thank you

[2:31] all for attending. We are going to uh start out with a poem

[2:39] that Dr. Sterling would like to read and that will be in lieu of our prayer

[2:43] tonight. So, if you just uh give her your attention for just a couple

[2:47] minutes. Dr. Sterling? All right. Good evening.

[2:50] All right. The title of this poem is The Legend of the Sand Dollar.

[2:55] Upon this odd-shaped seashell, a legend grand is told

[3:00] about the life of Jesus, the wondrous tale of old.

[3:05] The center marking plainly shows the well-known guiding star

[3:10] that led to tiny Bethlehem the wise men from afar.

[3:15] The Christmas flower, poinsettia, for his nativity, the resurrection, too,

[3:21] is marked, the Easter lily see.

[3:24] Five wounds were suffered by our Lord from nails and a Roman spear

[3:30] when he died for us upon the cross. The wounds show plainly here.

[3:37] Within the shell, should it be broken, five doves of peace are found

[3:43] to emphasize this legend. So, may peace and love abound.

[3:49] May Christmas season be filled with many blessings for you and your families.

[3:54] Thank you.

[3:58] Thank you. All right. Uh can I ask you to stand for

[4:01] the Pledge of Allegiance, please?

[4:06] Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the

[4:09] United States of America. And to the republic for which it stands,

[4:14] one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

[4:29] Okay. Um agenda approval uh is there a motion

[4:34] for the public hearing agenda approval? I move to approve the agenda for the

[4:39] public hearing. Thank you, Tina. Is there a second?

[4:43] Second. Thank you, James. All in favor, please

[4:46] raise your hand. Great. Uh abstentions?

[4:50] All right. We've got one. We've got one item on our public hearing

[4:53] agenda this evening. That's the comprehensive plan 5-year update for

[4:57] 2025. Uh

[4:59] Jennifer, could you confirm that notice has been given?

[5:02] Yes. All right. Then I'll hereby open that

[5:03] public hearing, and I assume uh Jerry, you're going to report on this. All

[5:07] right, Mr. White Dr. White. Yes, thank you.

[5:10] Uh good evening, Mayor and Council. Uh this is a public hearing on the

[5:13] comprehensive plan 5-year update. Uh we do this obviously every 5 years. The

[5:18] city also annually updates its comprehensive plan to

[5:23] uh deal with its short-term work program, or also called community work

[5:27] program, and also the capital improvements

[5:30] element for impact fees. Uh so, tonight is uh the state rules require that we

[5:36] have a hearing. Um Planning Commission had one at their

[5:40] last meeting, um because they're engaged in planning as well, of course.

[5:45] And uh this is the second of an initial public hearing.

[5:50] The purpose of it, it may seem a little odd. Why are we having a hearing? We

[5:53] don't have a new plan or haven't talked about anything new yet. Uh but the idea

[5:58] is that we'll tell the public, we'll inform the public

[6:02] of the process that we will follow and also um

[6:06] give them an opportunity to initially say, "Here's what I think some of the

[6:09] issues are. Uh please consider this or that in the

[6:13] update." So, um I'm going to go through with the the first one is the purpose of

[6:18] the of the meeting, which I've basically

[6:20] explained um all of that. We will um we'll listen to anyone at the end of

[6:25] this presentation, which shouldn't take me long.

[6:28] Um and then we'll see if anybody has comments.

[6:32] Uh the next one is what is the comprehensive plan? I think the council

[6:35] knows, but for the benefit of the public, it's a

[6:38] 20-year guide to decision-makings. It It uh decision-making.

[6:43] It guides our decisions with regard to zoning,

[6:46] uh rezoning decisions, variances, conditional use permits,

[6:52] preliminary plats, and so forth. It's not a legal document per se, but we do

[6:57] reference it in zoning ordinance, and it's one of the guiding uh principles

[7:01] behind whether we approve a rezoning or don't approve it.

[7:07] Uh it has vision a vision statements, goals, and policies,

[7:11] uh which we also look at. The most important piece probably is the future

[7:15] land use plan. You can see that pictured here.

[7:18] Uh we most recently amended and updated this plan uh just a few months ago.

[7:24] Uh to in order to uh bring the base map up to date, to put annexations on there.

[7:30] Uh we've got the um the new projects that we have annexed in, including

[7:35] tribute, and also the uh the Providence Group's

[7:38] project called Aberdeen. Um so, um

[7:43] the comprehensive plan is it has a five-year program which is supposed to

[7:49] tell us everything major that the city wants to do in the next five years to

[7:53] implement its plans and policies. And of course we do annually update the

[7:59] comprehensive plan with regard to the impact fee program and also the

[8:04] community work program. So briefly, uh, just so you know the

[8:08] components that are going to be in the comprehensive plan and that are in the

[8:12] plan now.

[8:14] We've got a goals element which is vision, goals, and

[8:18] policies. We have what's called a needs and

[8:20] opportunities element. The state likes to see us

[8:24] put in a somewhat succinct fashion what is it that we really need to focus on in

[8:30] the next five years and that's your opportunities.

[8:33] Your needs, they also call this your your SWOT analysis.

[8:37] Most everybody knows what that stands for, strengths, weaknesses,

[8:41] opportunities, and threats. Uh, other elements, uh, the work program

[8:46] as I said, there's a broadband element that's not really much of anything.

[8:51] The capital improvement element I've already mentioned. Uh, we do not have to

[8:55] have an economic development element but we do have a land use element and that's

[8:59] required because we have a zoning ordinance.

[9:02] There is no housing element required either. Um,

[9:06] only for, uh, cities that have community development

[9:10] block grant entitlement money do they have to have a housing element. Uh, this

[9:15] is not to say that we can't have housing policies, economic development policies,

[9:21] environmental protection is not an element but we have environmental

[9:24] protection policies and so forth. Moving on, the process that we'll

[9:29] follow, um, this is the first step of, uh, several,

[9:33] uh, these public hearings. Um, planning commission held theirs in

[9:37] November. This is uh, December for the city council. Uh, we have appointed a

[9:41] steering committee. Uh, they'll meet. Uh, it's up to the

[9:45] committee itself how many times they want to meet, but we envision five or

[9:49] six meetings over a five to six-month time period. We can also, uh,

[9:55] add on other public participation efforts. I've got that shown here a

[10:00] little bit later. Uh, I'll cover it briefly. Uh, recommendations will be

[10:05] made by the steering committee and the planning commission around the middle of

[10:09] the year 2025. That's June. Uh, we'll have review by the Northeast Georgia

[10:14] Regional Commission and the state once we've submitted a draft for review and

[10:19] then we will all of this process will end with adoption no later than October

[10:24] 31st, 2025. That's the city's qualified local government status deadline.

[10:31] Uh, the rest of this, uh, steering committee, um, listed on the steering

[10:36] committee. Next slide is, um, Uh, we've got four members of this council on the

[10:42] steering committee and that is by design. One might think, oh, we need

[10:45] citizens to do it, but the idea is that the elected, some elected leadership

[10:50] needs to have uh, way in on it and buy into the

[10:54] process. Otherwise, they're not going to vote for it when they get to, um,

[10:58] see it later in the year. Also, we have a planning and zoning commission and,

[11:04] uh, members, two members of the planning and zoning commission are on there as

[11:08] well as one resident, one business owner. Then

[11:12] we also have stakeholders. We, uh, need to identify and interview stakeholders.

[11:18] These are people primarily with a big stake, uh, like major property owners

[11:23] obviously have a lot to, lot at stake with the land use plan and so forth. But

[11:28] these are some others that we may as we go along, we may uh identify and talk

[11:34] to. And the And the mayor and council have already given us

[11:37] a list of a few people to talk to, which we will.

[11:41] But, there may be others as we go along. Um next is uh various techniques. Um

[11:49] we have a pretty good plan in place right now. Um we don't need to recreate

[11:53] it from the ground up, but at the same time we can decide

[11:57] other things that we might want to do to gain participation. I've mentioned the

[12:02] um initial hearings in the steering committee and stakeholder interviews.

[12:07] We also will have final public hearings, and then we can also

[12:11] have something else if we want to. For example,

[12:15] um if we feel like we need a questionnaire to ask the public for

[12:19] input on specific things, we can do that. As you know, we've already been

[12:24] doing that of some sort. The mayor, other council members have been

[12:28] um asking for uh opinions about new restaurants,

[12:33] things like that. If you remember uh uh the late Mark Coyman, who uh did some

[12:39] analysis of countywide surveying information. We have a lot of

[12:43] information, so I'm not so sure that we need to do

[12:47] a questionnaire, but we can. And we'll rely on the committee to tell us what we

[12:51] think uh the best approach is to community

[12:55] participation will be. Uh next is the um

[13:00] meeting contents for meeting uh for meetings of the steering committee.

[13:04] Uh I won't go into this, but this is a suggested breakdown for how we might

[13:10] tackle the um the subject matter by going through and

[13:15] talking about background and educating the group, and then talking about plans,

[13:21] policies, and vision, and goals, then talking mainly about housing, land use,

[13:26] community facilities, community work and then just review of the document itself.

[13:31] Then uh finally um this is going to be a little hard for

[13:35] folks to see, but we've got population projections here, and I think

[13:40] everybody realizes how fast we're growing here, which makes this effort

[13:44] all the more important. Um by the year 2024, we will have a combination of

[13:50] population employment that is something like 23,000

[13:55] people. Um about 18,000 of that will be

[13:58] household population, and employment is projected at 4,366

[14:04] in the year 2044. These and then the second table there,

[14:08] table two, shows you the net increase, which is

[14:11] substantial. I mean um over today's estimated population, the

[14:16] city of Houston's going to add 12,000 people. We're a town of

[14:22] 6,600 or so now, and we will be um

[14:26] well over um well, we'll be up to 23 uh let's see,

[14:32] 18,000. A total increase of 12,000. So,

[14:37] with that said, uh we want to open it up to the um

[14:41] public for any kind of questions that they might have. If they have thoughts,

[14:46] um the city attorney will run this part. If there's anyone who'd like to speak,

[14:50] we'd want to uh recognize them at this time.

[14:53] Thank you, Mayor and Council. Thank you. If anyone wishes to address

[14:57] the uh comprehensive plan, please raise your hand. I'll call you up.

[15:01] All right, do y'all have any questions for Scott White or anyone?

[15:05] All right, then I'll close the public hearing, and that's the only item on our

[15:08] public hearing agenda. Thank you, Jerry.

[15:12] Thank you, Ben. Uh Ben, I have this for you if you need

[15:16] it. That that last page. You're welcome. All right, uh we are going to I'm going

[15:22] to call the order of the work session. Uh and I'm going to ask if there is a

[15:26] motion for agenda approval.

[15:30] I make a motion to approve the agenda. Thank you, Dr. Sterling. Uh second,

[15:35] please. I'll second.

[15:36] Thank you, Tina. All in favor, raise your hand.

[15:41] All right, we're going to do reports by mayor, council, and staff. Uh I'm going

[15:46] to go ahead and start this time. I just have uh three things to report from the

[15:50] mayor's desk, if you will. Um this is just to inform and keep them

[15:55] keep the community informed as I as you know I like to do.

[15:59] Um I want to let you know that I have a made an official letter

[16:03] to GDOT uh requesting that they reduce the speed on 53

[16:08] from um Jefferson

[16:12] Street all the way to Crystal Lake, which is just about at the end of um

[16:16] Twin Lakes. So, basically, this whole downtown um it it it is an official

[16:21] letter now. It's a um I am asking for official in input from them. And again,

[16:27] it's to reduce the speed down to 35 throughout the whole city.

[16:32] Um the second thing I wanted to inform everybody, which is seems to be the

[16:35] topic certainly on social media and certainly on my phone

[16:40] I know Jennifer's phone and many of you other phones is Georgia Power.

[16:45] Um I have reached out today um with the help of some other people,

[16:51] and I have spoken to the uh region Northeast Georgia regional executive.

[16:58] He is coming to Hoschton on Tuesday with his um let me get you the right title

[17:04] for that. Excuse me, I'm sorry. One second.

[17:13] With his power delivery manager. Uh they are meeting uh, meeting myself

[17:18] and Jennifer here uh, next week and we're going to talk about

[17:23] the outages over the last 24 months in the city

[17:27] which by all records is around 22 outages and

[17:32] also mitigation going forward. So, um, I will of course update everybody

[17:37] after that meeting. And thirdly, uh, Dr. Whites talked about

[17:41] it. Uh, as you know, I do love surveys. It's very helpful for us to figure out

[17:47] what you want and how to move forward. There is a survey out now. Um, if you

[17:53] recall about a year ago, the late Dr. Mark

[17:57] Koeman Koiman came in here and he he gave us our survey results that he

[18:03] did in the county. And part of that survey was, how are

[18:08] your elected officials doing? And the results

[18:12] a year ago were not good. And I promised the city that I would

[18:16] rerun that portion this year. So, I have put that survey together. It is out

[18:21] there. The traffic's been low and I think it's because of the

[18:25] holidays, but I'm asking you, um,

[18:29] if you haven't, go look at the survey. It's on social media. If you can always

[18:35] get it through me or through Jennifer or any of our team. Um, anyway, so, we I

[18:40] will give those results in January of of how we're doing now versus 1 year ago.

[18:45] That's all I have. So, I'm going to start over here with James. James, do

[18:48] you have any updates? Um,

[18:52] not really any. Been busy at the cemetery.

[18:56] What else do you want to That's a good thing and a bad thing.

[19:00] Good thing and a bad thing. Yeah.

[19:02] We're selling lots, so that's a good thing.

[19:04] I picked out my place, by just so you know.

[19:07] What's that? I picked out my place.

[19:09] Oh, did you? Uh-huh.

[19:10] Yeah, it's all marked up and everything now.

[19:15] Scott, what you got?

[19:18] Um first and foremost um we started we did the Jingle Mingle last

[19:23] Friday. I want to thank everybody who participated. Uh special thanks She's

[19:28] not here. Where's Tiffany? Special thanks to Tiffany

[19:32] um for helping pull it off in the last

[19:34] minute. Um we probably had about 300 people show

[19:39] up. We were lucky enough to send seven car loads

[19:45] between trucks and car loads of

[19:48] toys, clothing, blankets, pajamas, you name it. I think we've got it up to

[19:56] Mill Springs, which is south of Lake Lure, North Carolina. Um

[20:01] we did a fundraiser a little bit with the 358

[20:05] Club over across the street, raised some money there. Um we bought some stuff

[20:10] with it over at Got to Have It. I want to make sure I try to touch everybody

[20:14] cuz touched everybody the other day, but um there wasn't many people here. It was

[20:18] sponsored originally by Rock Hard. Um there were 23

[20:23] businesses that participated. We also did at the same time as the Whistle

[20:27] Market. Um like I said, there were about 300

[20:30] people that showed up. Uh we had the we had the trolley.

[20:34] Probably only thing that we got to look a little bit better if we use the

[20:37] trolley in the future that comes around a little faster. A lot of people missed

[20:41] out on it. Like I said, same time we had the Whistle

[20:44] Market, had about 20 vendors out there for that. Um various food trucks up to

[20:50] selling clothing and pottery. Um

[20:54] we're going to send up again on the about the 19th or the 20th. I think some

[20:58] of my neighbors are going back up. They're going up this time to Swannanoa.

[21:02] So, if people still have some, I've been contacted on Facebook from people

[21:07] wanting to bring some more donations up. I know that Caddo has trying to get a

[21:11] hold of some air air pods that

[21:14] that would be less expensive so that we can buy some more of those to send up

[21:20] because they need things for really between kids 15 and 12. The problem the

[21:24] biggest problem is is that we don't need like $100 air pods because there's not

[21:29] like one we probably need for 30 to 50 kids. There are last time we sent up for

[21:35] like 500 children whereas what that was in the need for it. I think

[21:41] they did it last night. I do not have pictures but pretty sure last night they

[21:45] had like a a Christmas for the kids up in Mill Springs. Um it was a blessing

[21:50] really honestly. Uh a little too many tears. The mayor was crying. My

[21:54] neighbors were crying. Uh it's not right. You all don't need to make me

[21:58] cry. Um but we are lucky enough to do it. I

[22:01] can't say enough about the city. I hope we continue in the future that Jingle

[22:07] Mingle becomes our community helping others.

[22:10] Whether it's internally in Jackson County or externally like it was this

[22:13] time. Um

[22:15] Christmas is a time of giving. We're working on hopefully

[22:20] getting our and I can make this announcement maybe

[22:23] Fox News will hear this. We're hoping that

[22:26] we had the mayor um actually

[22:30] was able to get a little video a little interview. Um they're asking for

[22:35] Christmas light stuff. We lit our Christmas tree that night. I know next

[22:38] year we are moving it up. The days going to move up. We're scheduling events much

[22:42] earlier. Um kind of got that hopefully we'll have

[22:45] that out by the end of January that the whole event list for the whole year. Um

[22:51] so that's the first step. Second thing that we're all going to do is um

[22:58] Ben I'll give you a copy of this before you leave.

[23:00] We we going to start 2025 January 16th

[23:06] which is a Thursday. Mr. Clark, I hope you show up as a

[23:09] business owner in town. Um be 2025 Wharton Business Networking. The first

[23:15] time, I know in the past they've had a little coffee and conversations, but we,

[23:20] the mayor and myself, will be out there. It starts at 7:30 in the morning. It is

[23:25] for business people. Um for as many business owners as we can.

[23:30] I'm working with Jen to get an email out to all the businesses in town.

[23:35] Um we're calling the first one Excuse my little bit of words here, the

[23:40] BS experience. To future growth. And BS doesn't stand

[23:45] for what you all think it does, but it does stand for the ability to come in

[23:48] here um for lack of a better word, a

[23:51] little bit to us, give us a little bit of feedback from what we haven't done

[23:54] right in the past. Some of the stuff we may be able to fix.

[23:59] Maybe we can learn from some of the stuff.

[24:01] I won't have any say in it. I wasn't here

[24:04] 10 years ago, so when somebody tells me somebody didn't get an email back 10

[24:07] years ago, I'll apologize and move on. So, um we

[24:11] have an agenda. We're hoping all the businesses can get involved. We would

[24:16] want Wharton to feel like, you know, keep a small little piece of heaven is

[24:20] our mayor has been talking around saying.

[24:22] And get our businesses involved very much so. Um we need to get to support

[24:26] the small businesses as the growth keeps on coming here.

[24:30] So, that will be on the 16th 7:30 in the morning. It will be in here.

[24:35] Um so, hopefully Ben, you can get that out in the newspaper for us, too.

[24:39] Um for the local businesses. And the businesses uh you've spoken to

[24:43] have been extremely responsive to this idea, correct?

[24:46] Oh, 100%. Um actually we have a meeting tomorrow one

[24:50] business you and I myself. Um I It was amazing to see how many

[24:54] businesses came and helped out with the jingle mingle.

[24:59] I just it was amazing to see. So, I think they're all excited. I think

[25:04] we're getting really now we've got we'll see later on in the agenda there's two

[25:08] business owners. Um one sitting here, one one that's been

[25:12] the longest business owner in Houston. We'll be uh trying to you know we're

[25:16] going to look at them as BM DDA members. I know there's a third one that we're

[25:20] going to meet tomorrow yourself and I that would like to be on the DDA also.

[25:24] Um so it's good thing.

[25:28] So. Thank you, sir.

[25:29] No problem. Thank you, Sterling.

[25:31] Okay. Good evening. Uh I don't have a report, but I am still

[25:38] uh promoting the mayor's reading program.

[25:41] Uh I've been to uh West Jackson Elementary and I've done

[25:47] many lessons on local government and if you look in the back, uh you can see uh

[25:53] the end product. Uh I mean I talked to the kids about uh local government. I

[26:00] went a little beyond and talked about state government, but kept it small

[26:05] because I'm talking to kindergarten kids. But uh

[26:09] we talked about the mayor what the mayor does. Is the mayor uh guy or is the

[26:14] mayor uh girl and I got all kind of answers, but what we came up with that

[26:20] mayor can be a male or female. And uh

[26:24] so uh they uh created their puppets and I have two more classes.

[26:29] Uh I've emailed uh uh one of our officers uh

[26:37] is Officer Emerson. Yes, I emailed him. And he's he said he'll be delighted to

[26:43] go over uh and I'm going to email some other

[26:47] council members and uh their spouses. Anyone who would like

[26:52] to go over and read to the kids, they really are excited about us coming. And

[26:58] knowing that uh the mayor running the city is not just

[27:04] the mayor, that she has many helpers in doing that.

[27:08] So, if anybody would like to volunteer to read, uh just uh let me know. Come

[27:14] here to City Hall and just leave your name and number and I'll get in contact

[27:18] with you. Thank you.

[27:21] I did hear uh a rumor that there's somebody in the

[27:26] audience that loves to read to children. So, hopefully

[27:33] James, do you want to hear from Mr. Yeah, that's who I'm talking about.

[27:38] Yeah, yeah, they do. J.D. Brown, everybody. Just wanted to

[27:43] let you know. Tina?

[27:47] Um just a quick rundown, I guess. There hasn't been a lot of activity, but um

[27:51] the Oak Street Park is in the budget for next year, so I need to get that RFP out

[27:55] there. Um I have a funny feeling it'll probably

[27:59] be a two-phase project. Um but that's on me to get the RFP out

[28:03] there with my dreams and see how far we can go with it

[28:07] in 2025. Um the first reports on the Mulberry house um came back and so we've

[28:14] got to move forward on RFPs to get that demolished. That opens up a space in the

[28:20] Mulberry Park project that I have some ideas for that will um

[28:25] be added to that project, but that again is just future thinking and planning.

[28:30] Um we voted to accept the matching grant.

[28:34] So, I don't know when that'll be disbursed or when actual movement will

[28:37] take place on the park, but

[28:40] we're making progress. It's not entirely visible right now, but we're making

[28:43] progress. Thank you, Tina.

[28:47] David? you. Mayor, thank you. Um

[28:50] short and sweet, we got three projects I've I've been working on the last since

[28:54] the last meeting. Uh one of them was with the public works director, Jamie

[28:58] Wheeler. We've been driving the city looking at streets, uh

[29:01] which ones we want to repair. We have an LMIG coming up very shortly, so we're

[29:06] going around seeing the best way to spend that money and what we're going to

[29:09] do, and we think we have a proposal for the city. Uh also working with Jerry

[29:14] Hood um on city wells for the future. Looking at positioning, where we want to

[29:20] go, how much water we can get, uh because it is the least expensive kind

[29:24] of water we can possibly get, so we're probably going to go out and tour

[29:28] tour some places um next week and the week after and have

[29:33] something for the city by early next year.

[29:37] And then finally, as you well know, we did a GMA capital survey.

[29:42] Um so we'll be turning that in to to the GMA very soon.

[29:46] Other than that, thank you.

[29:50] Jennifer, before I go to you, I just want to make one more comment that I

[29:53] forgot to mention. Um just wanted everybody to know that Barrow County um

[29:58] at their last council meeting last meeting, they also approved our

[30:03] water agreement. So, that's been signed by both parties now. Just wanted to

[30:07] close the loop on that. Jennifer.

[30:10] Thank you, mayor. So, uh we have been um just like as Tina

[30:14] said, we have uh there's a lot of things going behind the scenes that we are

[30:18] working on that we are looking forward to um

[30:22] presenting to each and every one of you in 2025. A few things that I have that

[30:27] we have accomplished this uh month is the city uh mayor and council uh

[30:33] approved, you know, purchasing um the land for the future city hall and police

[30:37] complex that's on Peachtree Road. We um have signage that we have has been

[30:43] delivered today. So we are in hopes that you will see

[30:47] that signage on the property. I'm not sure if they're going to be able to do

[30:50] it tomorrow because they have training, but we will have it out next week.

[30:54] Um so that y'all can see exactly where our

[30:56] property that was purchased will be. Mayor and staff have been working on the

[31:02] golf cart ordinance and we should have that to you all very soon.

[31:07] Mayor Martin and myself has met with Matt Ruppel. Matt is

[31:13] Mr. Ruppel is opening the Pasta Master next door and he is also working for the

[31:19] future development of the garden which is at

[31:22] the 29 West Broad Street facility. So we're excited to work with Mr. Ruppel on

[31:27] those two. And then also

[31:31] Mayor Martin Councilmember Dave Brown and myself met

[31:37] with amongst some of our other staff members

[31:41] met with the MPO. We are continuing to work on

[31:45] the master traffic plan for the city of Hutchison. So we are excited about that

[31:51] and it was approved and by the state. So we are

[31:55] excited to work with them closely with them to get that moving.

[32:00] We are continuing to well I had this in my report but I believe that the mayor

[32:07] and Councilmember Scott Quarter has worked on the logo for the South Tower

[32:12] at Joe Pena and um and I believe that they have submitted a

[32:17] final a final logo. So lots going on.

[32:22] Yes, we're waiting on a couple more of the logistics to go with that, but we

[32:26] are excited that things are moving. A lot of our capital improvement

[32:31] infrastructure is moving. That's things that y'all don't normally you wouldn't

[32:35] see, but it is moving and we're we're excited about the

[32:39] the the improvements that are happening in the city.

[32:47] Also, if you look online um in our in the packets, I try to update everybody

[32:53] on what the ongoing projects are for 2024 and 2025. So, you can look there.

[32:59] Um we have three that are completed. The water booster pump, I did put completed,

[33:04] but we there's a couple of little things that we're tweaking on that. And so,

[33:07] we're hoping I talked to our engineer today, so we're hoping that we can get

[33:10] those couple things tweak tweaked so that we can get our

[33:14] um tank uh across from the fire department um active. And then our Broad

[33:19] Street paving, which is right in front of our Mulberry Park, is 100% completed.

[33:24] And if you've noticed um there is parallel parking now.

[33:28] Uh so, uh there you know, there's always a need for parking in downtown. So, we

[33:32] were we were thankful that we were able to

[33:35] uh implement that as well. And then um

[33:40] the waterline upgrade phase 1B is 100% completed, and it was under budget. We

[33:47] love under budget projects. And so, that is 100% done, and we will be working on

[33:53] phase two uh next year. So, uh you'll see that come back uh in front of you uh

[34:00] after we um make a complete bid. Uh also, there's public works department

[34:05] monthly meeting uh our monthly reporting here. There's the building department.

[34:10] And uh the police department, and uh the city planner's uh report. And so, uh we

[34:17] do uh encourage you to look at those and see what each department is is doing and

[34:22] how busy we truly are in the city of Houston.

[34:26] Thank you, Mayor.

[34:30] Thank you, everyone. It certainly is a busy town and a great place to be.

[34:37] Okay. Um let's go ahead and go to item number

[34:41] one, old business. This is resolution 2024-54.

[34:45] I'd like to call on uh Dr. Weiss for this, please.

[34:50] Thank you, Mayor. This is a loose end from a prior agenda. Uh we had several

[34:56] lift station properties that are being dedicated to the city. Uh we've accepted

[35:02] several of them, but there was one that we had a an issue with with regard to um

[35:08] proper legal description and and uh showing the lot in the public records

[35:14] that had not been done. So, we had to um get a

[35:18] an amendment to Cresswind phase four final plat to show that that lot, and

[35:23] now that's been done. And the applicant has given us the

[35:27] uh a deed, although it's not the right kind of deed. The um city attorney has

[35:32] told us that we have to have a a a warranty deed rather than a limited

[35:37] warranty deed. Uh but in any event, the there's a resolution for your approval

[35:42] that will accept uh 0.235 acres of land, which is

[35:48] improved with a sewage lift station, and we recommend that you approve that

[35:53] resolution in your voting session next um whenever

[35:58] that's coming up. Tuesday.

[35:59] Okay, Tuesday. And then uh we'll make sure that that

[36:04] uh the the uh deed will be in the right form for acceptance and recording. So,

[36:10] that's the recommendation for approval. I did talk to Jen about this today. Um

[36:15] she's been working with them, and she's very confident that we'll have it before

[36:19] voting on Tuesday, or they are, right? Um yes, we won't vote without it.

[36:24] Yeah, okay. Any questions?

[36:29] I have a question, Mayor. If I may.

[36:33] Yeah, sure. When do

[36:36] At what point does the city take over the maintenance for these lift stations?

[36:40] Is it when we get the land or is it before that?

[36:45] It's well before that. It's when they when they propose the final plat. When

[36:49] when we approve the final plat, they dedicate the roads and they the water

[36:53] lines and sewer lines and if there's a lift station a lift station at that time

[36:59] that doesn't mean that they dedicate the land underneath the lift station, but

[37:03] the physical plant of it it's dedicated once the final plat is approved.

[37:08] Okay, thank you.

[37:11] If they have a hiccup in getting us the right deed, I'm comfortable if y'all are

[37:15] with passing the resolution and Jerry I'll make sure the deed's in the correct

[37:18] format. They've given us the correct format in the past. I There just must

[37:21] have been a little trip up in the lawyer's office or something, so

[37:24] uh I'm fine with that if y'all are. It's up to y'all.

[37:27] Okay.

[37:30] Is Is this the same lift station that there was questions about as far as the

[37:34] fee being paid by the developer?

[37:39] When when it came online and when we accepted it.

[37:43] That I don't know. Uh I can't remember which which one is which. All I can say

[37:47] is that for you know, the um

[37:50] the lift station maintenance fee that was passed in I think it was April or

[37:55] May of 2023 for all of those that were

[37:59] dedicated after that date, we got um we got the maintenance fee and if if we

[38:06] didn't get it, then it's because we weren't able to get it from them.

[38:13] What's the fee on the maintenance? It's based on the horsepower of the uh

[38:18] of the um engine the motor in the pump station.

[38:23] Uh it ranges, I think, from $150,000

[38:31] Thank you. You're welcome.

[38:35] Any other questions on this?

[38:39] Okay. Uh we'll go to new business. Uh this

[38:42] authorizes the city to initiate a rezoning request C-24-04

[38:48] uh for 11.25 acres of property. Uh Dr. Weiss, would

[38:54] you like to speak to this as well? Yes, thank you, Mayor. Uh

[38:57] uh staff recommendation is that you go ahead and authorize us to

[39:02] initiate the rezoning of the property that the city just bought. It's about

[39:06] 11.25 acres. City Manager outlined the purpose of

[39:10] that is for uh among other things, for uh

[39:14] police complex and a new city hall complex. And the property is, I think,

[39:19] it's zoned R1 right now. It's zoned for residential. Um

[39:24] city uses can go in any zoning district, and so it's not absolutely essential

[39:29] that we rezone it, but uh just like when we did the Mulberry property and we

[39:35] wanted to put a parking deck on that, we rezone that to

[39:38] highway commercial, because that's where the park a parking deck should uh should

[39:43] be. And so, this is going to be an institutional piece

[39:46] of property, by and large, so we're recommending that you initiate the

[39:50] rezoning to from R1 to institutional. And if you vote on Tuesday night to do

[39:56] that, then it will go uh we'll prepare the application.

[40:00] Uh the legal ad this would it's not approving the rezoning, that's merely

[40:05] initiate authorizing the initiation of it, so we go through the process of

[40:10] public hearings uh first to the Planning Commission,

[40:13] then to the City Council. So, it's not a it's not a done deal. You're just saying

[40:18] let's start the process. And uh we think it's a

[40:22] uh as good a time as any to go ahead and get started on that. It relates to the

[40:26] second item which I'll hold off talking about till we get there.

[40:30] Okay. Thank you. Council, any questions?

[40:37] All right. Uh so we will go to new business item number two. Uh this is to

[40:42] authorize the city to initiate rezoning request Z -24-05.

[40:47] Uh go ahead, Dr. White, please. Thank you, uh Mayor and Council. Um

[40:51] this property uh you this project, The Enclave, was approved

[40:57] by the City Council in 2021. Most of you, I think, or all of you were not

[41:01] on the uh maybe James was here, I think. James was, but everybody else didn't, so

[41:07] you may not know all that much about the project, and that's why I wrote a uh

[41:11] five-page memo for you to have the background information so that in case

[41:17] you had a lot of questions about that project, um that we could maybe answer

[41:21] them and speed up the the uh deliberations tonight. Uh but basically,

[41:26] the recommendation is that you authorize the city to initiate

[41:31] a rezoning request which would change conditions of zoning approval on the

[41:35] Enclave project. And the million-dollar question really is,

[41:40] well, why don't you just have the property owner do this? Why does the

[41:43] city need to do that? And we we don't have to do it, but this property is

[41:48] abutting the property that we just talked about

[41:52] where the city wants to put a city hall and a police complex with uh

[41:57] parking for downtown and help create uh a new basically a new downtown with a

[42:03] main a main street style uh downtown. It's very, in my opinion, it's very

[42:09] exciting that we have this opportunity. I had worked with um Dr. Kumar and his

[42:15] group uh when he asked for my advice and I gave him a lot of advice and he took

[42:21] all all of my advice when he put together

[42:24] the plan and that the council uh adopted it. For his project, it's 225 units and

[42:31] you may if you read the memo or if you looked at

[42:34] that or maybe remember the discussion is that initially it was going to be

[42:38] condominiums. Uh but they ran into trouble with financing that and so uh

[42:44] council approved a modification of conditions to make those apartments. So,

[42:51] to make a long story short, the the idea here is that and and the council, the

[42:56] mayor, and other council members in addition to staff were in

[43:01] discussion with Dr. Kumar and his group about coordinating these two projects.

[43:08] And uh with there's there's a lot of power in

[43:11] looking at these two projects as one or at least in

[43:16] coordination with one another. And ultimately, I think one of our

[43:19] objectives is to get to the point where we adopt prepare and adopt a

[43:25] development agreement to basically jointly

[43:29] simultaneously develop both of these tracks and that that in itself comes

[43:34] with some other issues we can talk about, but uh basically tonight we want

[43:40] you uh we or we want you on Tuesday to authorize the initiation of the request

[43:45] and uh I didn't answer my question, which was

[43:47] why should the city do this rather than the um the applicant. And that is the

[43:53] with a big project like this, first of all, they're not trying

[43:57] to get more density or more units or anything. Basically, what they're trying

[44:02] to do is flip the land uses and we've got on

[44:05] there on the screen there their approved master plan and it shows

[44:10] that all the commercial is up there on Industrial Avenue.

[44:14] And the apartment buildings are to south. And basically

[44:19] as soon as Dr. Kumar and his group realized that the city was going to buy

[44:24] this property the property to the south they saw the opportunity to

[44:30] really put two and two together and create a critical mass that could be a

[44:34] downtown Main Street um area with commercial buildings and so

[44:40] he Dr. Kumar said, "Well, why why don't we flip the

[44:45] um apartment units, put them closer to Industrial, and move the

[44:50] uh some of the commercial, not the part that's the little block over to the

[44:54] northeast. That's going to stay exactly like it is, but let me go ahead and

[44:58] switch, if you will, to to the the other um the other piece. And what they what

[45:04] the idea was that they'd move the apartment buildings up closer to

[45:09] Industrial Avenue and drop the commercial

[45:13] most most of the commercial part of it to the south. And then we would that

[45:17] would be adjacent to the city property and then

[45:23] um I don't want to get too long-winded

[45:25] here, but suffice it to say that this this plan the um Kumar's group uh

[45:32] actually did some land planning for us. They took the

[45:35] concept plan that I had put together on how I thought it ought to lay out, and

[45:40] they put not only did they put it together, but then they put they added

[45:44] to it with a parking lot. They showed how the parking lot could be developed.

[45:48] And so um this is uh we want you to initiate this

[45:53] uh the the Kumar project because um again, I haven't answered the

[45:58] question I posed, but um the the reason for this is that

[46:03] we want to express to the public that we are

[46:07] in a cooperative mode with this developer that they're right beside this

[46:11] property and that we have mutual interest by working together we can save

[46:16] money uh and we can get our project completed faster. We want to move fast

[46:23] on our project. We know the city manager will tell you that we need this

[46:27] uh we've already outgrown city hall and so we we would like to see

[46:31] this whole thing happening as soon as possible and now we have I'm excited to

[46:36] say that we have an avenue that we would not be able to

[46:40] proceed with on our own. I don't think that we would have the initiative and

[46:44] the alacrity to move ahead with some of the stuff but if we have a

[46:48] another developer who's experienced in doing this and

[46:53] has a good idea and will work with us then um

[46:56] I think we have a real win-win situation and that's why

[47:01] um we want to express to the public that this is a this is a a good project to

[47:07] work with them with. It doesn't mean by initiating the request that we're

[47:13] obligated to approve it. You still go through the process. So it's not an

[47:16] approval um but it is um it it's going to take some of the heat

[47:21] off of the owners of that property and

[47:25] from having to defend it as for example we don't want to re-litigate

[47:30] the issue of whether 225 apartments are okay on that site. And if the applicant

[47:36] does that they're going to be suspicious of what their motives are. They're going

[47:39] to think they're trying to change density and units and everything and

[47:43] and so I it I would agree at least that it's better

[47:48] for us to initiate that and we'll do it at the same time with the cities if you

[47:53] if the council approves it. Um so I think that that's really

[47:58] everything that I needed to say. Um, maybe one other point. Um, we do think

[48:03] that we want to recommend a development agreement on the part of

[48:08] this developer and the city. And we have started some discussions with the group

[48:14] and by the way, Dr. Kumar and his team, Pablo and Joe from uh, planners and

[48:19] environmental um, consultants are are here tonight. I

[48:24] don't think we need to call on them, but at the

[48:26] council's leisure or discretion, you could call on them to um,

[48:32] answer questions about it. But we ultimately want to get to um, I think to

[48:36] a development agreement and uh, there is the opportunity to

[48:41] square off this boundary. There's an odd uh, diagonal boundary between the two

[48:47] properties and it would be very much advantageous to both if we could square

[48:53] that off. So, we've been talking about a a 1 square foot to 1 square foot trade

[48:58] of area between the two so that it would be if we're trading

[49:03] property the same amount, then perhaps that's not takes away some of the issue

[49:08] and um, so we're looking at that and the the the group has been everything I've

[49:13] asked them to do, they've funded it. They funded the

[49:16] the master plan putting the this concept onto paper

[49:22] drawing out the parking lot and then when I asked them about the the boundary

[49:26] line adjustment between the two, they've already done that also. So, I feel like

[49:30] we've got momentum and um, we've got a real good thing to

[49:35] pursue here and I'm really excited about it. If the council will proceed with it,

[49:39] we'll um, initiate the zoning and go from there and then we'll work on a

[49:44] development agreement. Um, I do know that the city manager has shared with

[49:49] the city attorney the idea that we want to do a development agreement and he has

[49:53] posed uh, a couple of procedural things that we didn't think about that are not

[49:58] insurmountable, but they may require us to do things like um an appraisal, for

[50:03] example, um on the property before we do anything and um

[50:09] the assumption also is that we will have the same

[50:13] uh engineering team for both projects and the same development team.

[50:19] Uh and in order to do that, I understand from the city attorney that we have to

[50:24] uh we may have to still go through a competitive bidding process. We can't

[50:28] just decide to award something. It's got to

[50:31] go through the proper procedures. And so we will do that and the expectation

[50:35] would be that that that group the group that

[50:39] Kumar's group wants it will will be the most cost-effective because they're

[50:44] doing this other project and they'll be able to save we we estimate they

[50:49] estimate uh savings by working together of 200 to

[50:53] 250,000 dollars for both groups. That's split

[50:57] between two property owners. So anyway, enough said. I've more detail than you

[51:02] probably need. If you want to know more about the project, it's listed uh

[51:06] described in the memo, but I'll be ans- able to answer questions if you have any

[51:10] about it.

[51:15] Council? Just for clarity

[51:19] which you covered this, so I admit that I'm asking something that I think you've

[51:23] answered, but I wanted to be sure. Um

[51:27] no increase in the number of units. That's correct.

[51:30] Still 225. Correct.

[51:32] Still class A apartments. That's right.

[51:36] The total height of 75 feet and five floors has already been approved. That's

[51:40] not an increase. That's correct.

[51:42] And so the only change it just says a change to conditions.

[51:47] Um and I apologize I didn't get to read your whole report

[51:50] like I normally do. The only condition is literally the

[51:54] layout. That's the only thing that's changing.

[51:57] Yes. Now, as we go into it a little bit more, by the time you get to this, uh

[52:02] there may be a little bit of other refinement to it. Like, for example, um

[52:09] the you're right that the only major change to it is flipping the land uses,

[52:13] but also it means something a little different

[52:17] now for Industrial Boulevard, for example. When that was going to be a

[52:21] commercial corridor, it probably needed more um improvement than it it would we

[52:28] put some improvement requirements on it. And now with it being um

[52:33] more of a residential corridor, it may be that we revisit some of the

[52:37] conditions. There are There are some tweaks that we've talked about with

[52:41] conditions, but they're not um they're not of substantial public

[52:46] interest, if I can put it that way. I don't think we'll we'll

[52:50] we'll make sure that you realize any kind of changes that we that are

[52:54] proposed to the conditions. There are some others besides just flipping it,

[52:59] but uh but they're not uh there shouldn't be anything that's um

[53:03] objectionable, in my opinion. I know 53 is a state road, but are there

[53:08] going to be deceleration lanes or light there

[53:11] that we know of? At 53 and um

[53:16] Industrial. Industrial?

[53:18] Huh. I remember what the state study, if you

[53:23] um we had a presentation at the planning commission about that about what the

[53:28] state recommended. And oddly enough, they recommended in their study

[53:33] the 53 and 60 corridor studies, um

[53:38] they recommended that that road, that Town Center Parkway, be rerouted to come

[53:43] down a little bit to to intersect with industrial, which I think is totally

[53:50] That was just a plain sorry but a bad a bad idea. I don't think it's going to

[53:54] happen. It would take it would take a million dollar probably piece of

[53:58] property out of play from development all together. So

[54:02] I think there'll be something there. Um I think it was calling for a traffic

[54:07] signal ultimately at that intersection, but that was as re-aligned. And now with

[54:13] that if that's not aligned uh

[54:16] I don't know. Luckily we have a transportation plan on its way that we

[54:21] can begin to address some more of that and give our get our own opinion as to

[54:26] what we think we want at that intersection.

[54:30] So that doesn't need to be in the conditions.

[54:33] No, I I don't think it does. Uh we didn't address it. Uh we didn't call for

[54:38] a traffic signal. I think we called for improvements.

[54:42] Uh there I'd have to look at exactly what the conditions were, but we had

[54:46] 16 conditions. Yeah, 16.

[54:49] So that's what it was be that's that's remaining the same right now. We just

[54:53] don't have them listed yet, right? Yeah, the conditions will remain more or

[54:57] less the same. There are there may be four of them that have uh that may have

[55:03] a uh some slight changes to it that the the applicant wants.

[55:08] Uh but mainly the main one is that it requires the site plan to be in

[55:13] substantial accordance with what was approved. And my determination as zoning

[55:18] administrator was you know, even if you're not changing

[55:22] the land use, but you're flipping the way they are laid out on the plan that

[55:26] that that's a substantial change. And so I was un- unwilling to say, you know,

[55:32] we'll just let you flip your site plan over. That needs to come back and be

[55:36] modified. So that's what one of the main reasons why

[55:40] why we would be doing it. Dr. Weiss also says 60,000 square feet,

[55:44] roughly, um commercial non-residential. That's

[55:48] the same number that we were That's the same number that it will be.

[55:51] Correct. That's good.

[55:53] It's really good.

[55:57] Jerry, does do the plans in anytime show what White Street's going to do? Can

[56:02] White Street come all the way up to uh Peachtree Road?

[56:07] Uh well, no, we weren't going to extend

[56:11] White Street as a road. Although, but but the plan here, if you look at what

[56:15] we have, if you'll scoop that up just a little bit, the um we are proposing, in

[56:21] essence, I'm not calling it a a public street or even a street, but we would we

[56:27] would develop part of the agreement would be that we would develop our part

[56:32] of that road, if I can call it a road or a major driveway, and that would also

[56:36] provide access to the Enclave development, and it would if if they're

[56:41] able to start from our end and access through our property to develop theirs,

[56:47] then that has certain major advantages. So, there would be a connecting way to

[56:52] get through there, but where White Street is, we want that to be our

[56:57] multi-use path or our life path, as Jennifer Harrison likes to call them.

[57:03] Uh so, we're you know, we've got the opportunity to

[57:07] extend the path that we have now through our property, we build that, and

[57:12] then Kumar Kumar's Enclave development with conditions of approval will have to

[57:18] build the rest of it, and then we connect to White Street, and then we

[57:22] have some decisions we can make in the comp plan about what do we want for

[57:26] White Street? Should it be a one-way street, or um

[57:30] do we want to put a uh

[57:33] a bi- a bike lane or multi-use path on it? We've been talking about how we cut

[57:37] over through our well site on White Street, and then that gets us to the

[57:42] park, okay, to the Mulberry property that we own. So, it's very exciting to

[57:48] think that we've got a an ability to go all the way from Cresswind and Publix in

[57:53] Twin Lakes PUD, cross Peachtree, come through the subdivision there, and come

[58:00] through this property, come through Kumar's property, and come to the

[58:04] downtown, come to the new park that we're going to build, and it's just it

[58:08] really ties it all together all at one. And we don't have to wait for one to

[58:12] happen over the other because we're going to choreograph the development in

[58:17] a way to where it happens more or less not all of the Kumar development, but

[58:21] all and not all of ours, but at least the fundamental parts of what we need

[58:25] will will go in place at the same time. So, has the

[58:30] city or the developer done a traffic study on any of this?

[58:33] No. Not required or

[58:36] I mean No, we don't we don't require turning loose what, 500 cars?

[58:41] Um, well, let's see.

[58:45] I'm not sure what the trip generation ultimately is on both of them. It's It's

[58:49] a lot of traffic, but we're also going to distribute it a lot of ways. It's

[58:53] going to go out 53, it's going to go out Industrial, a little bit of it will go

[58:58] out on White Street, and some will go out on Peachtree Street. Uh,

[59:01] so, it'll get distributed. And if you um, Jan, if you'll

[59:06] right there where our complex is, you'll see that the road, the connectivity,

[59:11] will come on Peachtree where the red light will be as well. So, that will

[59:15] help flow there. And again, we're all you know, we're

[59:18] we're all always working on connectivity with

[59:22] getting you out of your vehicle and into a golf cart

[59:26] Um, that you can still live, work, and play and um, hopefully

[59:31] do it with a golf cart. So, we're trying different We're We're working on

[59:35] different ways so that it does um, decrease the traffic on 53.

[59:41] Now, if I can add one more thing about the um,

[59:43] the parking lot, the beauty behind this is that that's a lot of parking. That's

[59:47] more than the city. Uh, I think it was uh, Joe, you remember

[59:51] the number 200 and something spaces? 270.

[59:55] 270. Okay, so that's a lot of spaces and what what we envision was that the um,

[1:00:02] the downtown, this area, Main Street at night, you know, City Hall will be

[1:00:07] closed, but we've got a big parking lot that can overflow and and handle

[1:00:12] uh, a a good bit of downtown traffic. And um, we would we would agree to

[1:00:19] um, allow for or lease or something um, the

[1:00:25] Kumar's project, the that project to be able to use some of the parking that

[1:00:29] we're Not all of it, but some of it. Um, and there may be some compensating

[1:00:34] exchange for being able to do that, but we'll

[1:00:37] figure all that out in a development agreement.

[1:00:40] And if you also notice um, Tina, there's more additional park.

[1:00:45] Mhm. And there's also um, something that they

[1:00:48] um, and this is an option, but the Civic

[1:00:51] Center uh, and another another way to um,

[1:00:56] the community to you know, the community, the citizens to enjoy as

[1:00:59] well. Yeah, the point I'd make about that is

[1:01:02] that I had initially drawn it with small commercial buildings to get a a bigger

[1:01:08] commercial mass for downtown and the bottom line is it really that part of it

[1:01:13] really doesn't matter. Let's not lose sight of our focus is to get City Hall

[1:01:18] and police in there and we've got plenty of land to put parking lot and then

[1:01:22] extra space for whatever that may be. Kumar makes a good argument that we

[1:01:27] really ought to reserve a space for for a civic center.

[1:01:31] And so we've got it's drawn with a civic center and a small commercial building,

[1:01:35] but I would argue let's not get bogged down about

[1:01:39] the future uses of that part of it. That's less important. We got plenty of

[1:01:43] time to think about what we're going to do with that. We'll just install

[1:01:47] utilities that'll be good for whatever goes there.

[1:01:51] So the 270 spaces is just on the city property. It's an addition to the

[1:01:56] parking for the apartments. That's correct. They'd have their own

[1:02:00] the Kumar project would have its own parking

[1:02:04] and they would meet their code, but it would be um

[1:02:08] it would be basically shared parking. It's our parking, the city's. Um which

[1:02:13] we can use, but they they would be able to use if we come to agreement for them

[1:02:19] to use it in after hours. It's kind of like

[1:02:22] land use sharing. It's not you it you don't need to use it at the same time.

[1:02:26] After after 5:00 is when the restaurants will get busy and

[1:02:31] if we have any drinking places in there. That will be time for

[1:02:37] people to go. Just 270 and how many are yours?

[1:02:42] How many does the city control? No, uh

[1:02:44] Parking parking. Yeah, so on the residential side they're

[1:02:49] required to have have 413 spaces. And that's provided on the residential side.

[1:02:55] Okay. And so the only parking that's shared

[1:02:57] between the city and the other property are some

[1:03:01] commercial spaces. So all residential

[1:03:04] are on the residential side. There are some commercial on the residential side.

[1:03:08] How much is that? Let's see.

[1:03:13] Commercial parking required We're providing 175 commercial spaces

[1:03:20] and 100 of those are on the city side. You were going to provide

[1:03:27] 55 on your side, correct?

[1:03:33] And uh the one other thing that um city manager asked me, said, "Well, you

[1:03:38] know, look at all this parking." Said, "Do we She said, "Do you really Do we

[1:03:43] really need to build a parking deck?" And I said, "Well,

[1:03:47] you might not. I mean, uh that's a lot of that's a lot of parking. I wouldn't

[1:03:51] say no to the others, but it it very well could be that this helps us

[1:03:57] build a smaller deck or defer the building of a parking deck or

[1:04:03] you know, it gives us better options.

[1:04:08] Well, could you repeat that last part that you just said?

[1:04:10] It gives us better By doing this, if we if we build a

[1:04:15] parking lot of this sort, it gives us better options for

[1:04:19] what we were proposing before with Mulberry. If we were to do maybe we

[1:04:24] don't have to do a parking deck or maybe it's not as big and expensive as what we

[1:04:32] thought we needed. Or maybe it can come in later because then we we've satisfied

[1:04:37] the requirement. It just gives us more options on that Mulberry property to not

[1:04:44] make that um we don't have to commit to what we

[1:04:47] thought we were going to have to commit to do there.

[1:04:53] Any more? Any other questions?

[1:04:56] We Thank you, everyone, on that. Okay, moving on

[1:05:02] moving on to uh number three, GDA board members.

[1:05:06] Uh we have one here. The other one uh uh is not able to be with us today. So,

[1:05:13] we do have Mitchell Clark here. Mitchell, do you want to just stand up

[1:05:15] if you don't mind? Just so everybody knows who you are. Um,

[1:05:20] the DD the DDA has already approved and it's

[1:05:23] for our team to approve on Tuesday. He's here to answer any questions if council

[1:05:28] has any.

[1:05:33] Mr. Clark, how long have you lived in the

[1:05:36] You what? I didn't know I was going to be asked

[1:05:38] that question. Oh.

[1:05:39] You been in the community how long? A long time.

[1:05:42] A while. Just to share with everybody.

[1:05:44] My name is Bill Pierce. I was raised in the church.

[1:05:48] I was in the old church. Seen a lot of changes.

[1:05:52] Right. A lot of changes.

[1:05:56] Raising my children

[1:06:00] a lot of changes.

[1:06:03] Now, I'm a believer. Dr. Kumar.

[1:06:05] Yes. I can

[1:06:07] I was part of the trick or treat last year.

[1:06:10] The trick or treat last year and the council wants to do it this year.

[1:06:13] And he was part of the real estate and he has had a lot of you know, take over

[1:06:17] the um, the um, aspect of DDA

[1:06:21] small business owners

[1:06:27] And he also, I just like to make a comment, too. He also approved for his

[1:06:32] building, which is, uh, we'll call it the Slice building.

[1:06:35] It's got beautiful Christmas lights on it now and you know, we thank you for

[1:06:38] doing that with with us.

[1:06:42] Any questions? Okay, the other candidate who was not

[1:06:46] here today is Mr. Maddox who owns Mission Hardware. Uh,

[1:06:49] if you went to the gala, you met him then.

[1:06:52] Uh, if you've been to the hardware store, you know him.

[1:06:55] And he probably knows you. Um, unfortunately, he's he's not here, so

[1:07:00] you can't ask him any questions, but do you have any for Dr. that Dr. Kumar

[1:07:04] could answer?

[1:07:08] Well, I have no questions. that I may I can watch for Mr. Mayor

[1:07:13] Madam. He's been too long

[1:07:16] and he represents the small business. We have all the big box coming to the town.

[1:07:22] Suddenly, we want to keep all the networking of all the small businesses

[1:07:26] and also the corporate taking the initiative. So, we want to be

[1:07:30] close to the community. So, Mayor has been a plus for the manager.

[1:07:37] How long has the mayor been here on the board?

[1:07:40] He's older. Actually,

[1:07:42] He's older. I was going to say he's older, right?

[1:07:46] Any questions? Any Anybody? Okay, great.

[1:07:50] All right, let's move on to item number four. This is a personnel policy update.

[1:07:56] Uh paid time off. I always like paid time off. I'm going to defer to Jen to

[1:08:00] talk about this.

[1:08:03] Um thank you, Mayor. So, the real changes that you see um proposed in

[1:08:08] front of you would Presently, employees are allowed to cash

[1:08:13] out PTO a maximum of four times per year. Um the finance payroll department

[1:08:19] has asked that we reduce that the number of times that employees can cash out um

[1:08:25] accumulated PTO to two times per year, once in the first six months of the

[1:08:29] year, and once in the second six months of the year maximum. And also um it's

[1:08:35] been requested just to keep the budget in check and also I guess encourage

[1:08:40] employees to actually use PTO for vacation time or just however they need

[1:08:45] to. Um it's recommended to reduce the number of hours that employees may cash

[1:08:51] out from 80 hours per request to 40 hours. So, currently the minimum is 20

[1:08:59] hours um that they would need to request at a time and that remains the

[1:09:04] same. So, it would just go from They would be

[1:09:09] Sorry. They'd be requesting um between 20 hours and 40 hours per check. And

[1:09:14] then that helps keep the budget where it should be as far as employee um pay and

[1:09:21] reducing the number of times helps keep Tiffany less busy.

[1:09:26] Yes. And and and calm.

[1:09:29] Yes. Helps keep Tiffany calm.

[1:09:31] good. How many employees for the total total

[1:09:35] city? Um,

[1:09:37] we've 18 at the moment. 18?

[1:09:41] Um, we do have a few open spots currently and then there are a couple

[1:09:45] new spot positions opening up in 2025.

[1:09:51] Looking for a job, James? Nope.

[1:09:53] Okay, just sign it out. Watching the

[1:09:56] money roll out. Yep, that's the approved budget that we

[1:09:59] just done. Mhm.

[1:10:02] Uh, any other questions? Okay.

[1:10:06] Uh, we'll move on to item number five. This is the water and sewer connection,

[1:10:10] also known now as system development fees. Uh, we

[1:10:15] this team in our retreat in September uh, requested

[1:10:21] um that our city look at our current fees.

[1:10:26] Uh, specifically we wanted to look at uh, sewer and water fees. Uh, we have

[1:10:31] now gotten some data back that um our fees are low. And so, um we'll go

[1:10:37] through a couple of changes on the fees. On the water fee uh, we currently are at

[1:10:42] $3,000. We are going to 4,600 if approved on Tuesday.

[1:10:48] Uh, the sewer fees we are currently at 6,000. We are uh, going to 8,800.

[1:10:55] Uh, I would like to explain a little bit about that I just so you understand it's

[1:11:00] also in the letter page four of the letter that we received with our packet.

[1:11:08] For us to go to a 2.0 as we all know is about 51

[1:11:15] million dollars and in order for us so really what that

[1:11:19] means is per gallon it's 35 dollars and

[1:11:24] 17 cents and we we are not going to make the citizens

[1:11:29] that live here pay for that. We really really want

[1:11:32] development sorry developers sitting out there.

[1:11:36] You have to help us pay for that. So in order for us to do that we have to raise

[1:11:40] these these fees. David did I miss any major point there?

[1:11:46] Thank you. Anybody have any questions about that?

[1:11:53] Okay, great. Um

[1:11:59] If anyone wishes to address the mayor and council this evening about any

[1:12:01] issue, please raise your hand and I'll call you up.

[1:12:05] Seeing no hands I'll turn it back over to you Madam Mayor and we do need

[1:12:07] executive session for real estate and litigation.

[1:12:10] Okay, before I ask for a motion to go into

[1:12:12] executive session I just want to make three quick announcements and and then

[1:12:16] I'll make the motion, okay? Um upcoming events December 17th is our

[1:12:21] voting session that's next Tuesday the 18th is the planning and zoning

[1:12:26] which on that agenda is conditions for plan of the a daycare.

[1:12:34] Um also December 19th that's community conversations. I really

[1:12:38] want to try to get that out there people to attend that is on mental health

[1:12:42] awareness and Judge Ben Green who is our

[1:12:45] magistrate judge will be doing that with also Jessica Green and

[1:12:52] we will have a special guest Zachary. He's a young teenage gentleman who has

[1:12:57] gone through this and is on the other side and he has a beautiful story and I

[1:13:02] really hope that you, your family and the community is able to

[1:13:06] attend that. It's also the last day Judge Green will

[1:13:10] be with the city of Hutchins. So we also want to thank him for being

[1:13:15] our judge over the last How many years? Two years.

[1:13:21] Okay, with that I'd like to make a motion to go in executive or real

[1:13:25] estate. Is there a second? I second.

[1:13:29] Thank you. Who seconded? All in favor raise your hand.

[1:13:32] All right, we'll be back shortly.

[1:13:47] You don't want to email me.

[1:13:55] Yep.

[1:13:58] I'll be going down the road.

[1:14:03] If you're charging that, that's okay, but if you don't have pressure

[1:14:07] We don't have water pressure.

[1:14:12] Oh.

[1:14:25] Exactly right. Why shouldn't they pay?

[1:14:29] We're only paying out.

[1:14:43] No.

[1:14:46] You going to take that to JJ. What do you got in your pocket? Okay.

[1:14:49] We They're so far down the road.

12/12/24 Public Hearing and Work Session

Transcript